Many people like to drink the fermented juice of the fruit of the vine (Vitis vinifera).
The wine has a good press. “Knowing about wine” is well regarded in our social gatherings. Even the belief that drinking a glass of wine a day is good for our health became firmly entrenched among us.
But… Is wine really as good as it seems?
Searching for the answer to this question, in recent years science has made a series of surprising discoveries.
So are our beliefs about wine
We could never imagine that our interaction with wine would be so complex, nor so old.
So if you like wine, pour yourself a good glass now and get ready to enjoy, because the science of wine is undoubtedly as exciting as the wine itself.
Surely reading this article will forever change what you think about wine.
It is convenient to start by reviewing some of our beliefs about wine.
Numerous popular articles state that, taken in moderation, wine has a cardio-protective effect.
It is also insisted that red wine contains polyphenols that to some extent could defend us against certain types of cancer.
In addition, it has become fashionable to talk about the benefits of some “miracle” molecules, which apparently seem to be good for almost everything. And how could it be less, one of them -reverastrol- is present in red wine.
Given that cardiovascular and oncological diseases are among the main causes of death, it is not surprising that in recent years the number of rigorous scientific studies on the supposed long-term benefits of consuming wine in moderation has increased.
The benefits of a glass of wine for behavior
In addition to these supposed benefits on our health, wine acts in a much more immediate -and proven- way on our behavior.
After slowly drinking a glass of wine (about a quarter of a liter) a healthy young person weighing about 70 kilos will reach a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.05% after a while.
A series of studies carried out by psychologists indicate that these doses of alcohol produce;
A feeling of joy.
It also makes us bolder.
Increases our sociability, facilitating new friendships and even strengthening existing ones.
We also feel much more uninhibited when it comes to speaking a foreign language.
But that is not all.
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Some psychologists affirm that under the effects of a glass of wine we use a greater range of strategies when solving problems, which could lead to more efficient mental processing.
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Others suggest that under the effects of moderate doses of alcohol we have a better memory.
If only half of this is true, it would explain why wine occupies such a prominent place in our lives today.
Historically a drink of the gods
Drinking wine is not something new. Archaeologists and historians agree that human beings have been drinking wine for thousands of years.
It was consumed in abundance in ancient Egypt, classical Greece and ancient Rome, where they believed, without a doubt, that nothing less than the direct intervention of gods like Hathor, Dionysus or Bacchus was needed to transform the simple must of the grapes in the heavenly wine.
Long before, in the Middle East, one of the places where agriculture began, archaeological evidence abounds that shows the importance that wine had at the dawn of civilization.
For example, in Zargos (Iran) vessels from 7,400 years ago were found containing traces of wine.
More than 60 centuries ago, wineries producing wine on a large scale already existed in what is now Armenia. They stomped the grapes in large-capacity vats cast in stone, and then fermented the resulting juice in smaller ceramic containers.
But the wine must have started to be consumed even earlier.
Wild vines abound in many areas where the first hunters and gatherers of our species lived.
And fungi of the group abound on the skin of the grapes. Saccharomycetes, often carried to them by small fruit flies. The Saccharomycetes they ferment the sugar from the grapes transforming it into ethanol.
Also, the fungus Botrytis cinerea directly attacks the grapes, managing to ferment them on the plant itself (currently the wines of Botrytis are still highly prized and often expensive).
No doubt many Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had access to fermented grapes that could be considered the earliest versions of wine.
Did you know that we drink wine thanks to a mutation millions of years ago?
In recent years, genetics is providing evidence that history was not always as it was told to us.
And the same thing happens with wine.
Recent studies have shown that about 10 million years ago our African evolutionary ancestors had an enzyme, ADH4, with the capacity to metabolize a wide variety of molecules present in the plants that served us as food.
But ADH4 could not metabolize ethanol (the main alcohol in wine).
A mutation then occurred, known as ADH4n.
Those who had the mutant enzyme ADH4n could metabolize ethanol. And this allowed them to start eating the fruits that, after falling ripe from the trees, quickly fermented in the warm African soil.
Access to this new energy source gave ADH4n carriers such a considerable advantage that the mutation spread rapidly among…