Some things are better left unsaid: a look at the chemical composition of wine. What’s in there on the molecular level, is it healthy, and does it taste good?

Don’t Ask What’s In the Glass

On one of those sunny, breezy, typically East End spring days last week, I started my rosé season. My wine of choice was typically East End also: Wolffer, a rosé that has become a staple part of summer life in the Hamptons. Why is a well made rosé such a treat year after year? A good one is lovely, bright, and vibrant, with a snappy, lighthearted quality that makes it seem so right at those certain times when a red or even some whites might have too much gravitas. Maybe it is the place or mood or season, but there are moments when only a rosé will be on target.

Costing just $14 at the winery, the 2004 Wolffer appeals to the eye with a hue that can be salmon, orange, or copper, or a combination, depending on the light around it. (Though evaluating color in reds and whites is important, nothing gives quite the visual pleasure of looking at various rosé colors.) The Wolffer rosé appeals to the nose and the palate also, with fresh cherry and peach aromas and hints of citrus, and with a lively, lush, dry taste enhanced by some residual CO2, the result of cold fermentation in stainless steel.

The Wolffer 2004 rosé is composed of 80% merlot, 15% pinot noir, and 5% chardonnay grapes. During the winemaking process, the red grapes remain for just 12 to 14 hours in their skins before being pressed, lending a delicate color and mouthfeel. It all comes together—the grapes from vines in Sagaponack soil, the Eastern Long Island climate, the quality of the harvest, the skills of Roman Roth, the winemaker, and perhaps even a certain gentle magic in the fermenting—for our drinking pleasure. It is delicious, but what is actually going on in the glass?

I recently did some research on the chemical composition of wine, and you might agree with me that some things are better left unsaid. A chemical analysis tells us that wine is 85% water and 12% ethyl alcohol, with small quantities of acids (malic, tartaric, and others), sugars and carbohydrates, and scary sounding components like aldehydes, ketones, phenolics, enzymes, pigments and a few vitamins and minerals. About 300 individual components have been identified, and there are probably others waiting to be discovered. Is this the molecular story behind the magic?

The alcohol and acids, besides contributing to taste, inhibit the growth of pathogens, which is why throughout most of history, wine was a safer, more hygienic bet than water. Virtually all wines contain sulfites. They show up naturally during fermentation, and sulfur may sometimes be added in the winemaking process. The quantities are tiny compared to what is sometimes found in dried fruits and processed foods. The legal limit for wine is 350 ppm, although better quality wines rarely contain more than 40 ppm.

Those sulfite warning labels required by law on wine bottles in this country might be overkill. The sulfites themselves are not harmful, but some people are allergic. Sensitivity to sulfites is found in about 1% of the population (but 5% of asthmatics) according to the FDA. Neither the EU nor any individual country in Europe requires sulfite warnings for wine.

While the nutrients in wine are negligible and it won’t appear on the food pyramid anytime soon, it offers other health benefits that don’t come with broccoli: a mild tranquilizing effect, an appetite stimulant, and an aid to digestion. And we now know that moderate and regular consumption of red wine can help prevent coronary disease. This became big news after the 60 Minutes broadcast of November 1991.

It was treated on television and subsequently in newspapers as a breaking story, but the facts were already there. In the 1970s, the Framingham Heart Study showed that deaths among moderate drinkers were far fewer than among nondrinkers, but back then the news was kept hidden by the National Institutes of Health, presumably in an attempt to discourage drinking.

I think the chemistry and health benefits make an interesting footnote, but far more important for most of us are the less tangible pleasures associated with wine: the connection to tradition, the enhancement of food, the conviviality of sharing a bottle. And if you are like me, many of the bottles that you open in the warm days ahead of us will be rosé.