While speaking about wine we of course all think of a drink that is obtained from the juice of grapes. In fact, wine can only be called wine if it is made from grapes. This is laid down in a French decree from 1907 that says that wine must be prepared from the juice of fresh or dried grapes. A variant of this is the so-called "fruit wine". When the juice of fruits other than grapes is fermented, that product is called fruit wine. Examples of this are apple wine, pear- and berry wine and of course plum wine. Wine can also be made from rice or honey. And then there is also Blood Wine. This is wine to which artificially reinforcing substances have been added, such as iron, calcium and ginseng.
Fruit wine
The production of fruit wines goes as follows; Depending on the desired alcohol percentage, the fruit is allowed to ferment up to a maximum of three weeks. The product that comes out of this is still cloudy. To get this clear, the product is clarified in tanks (cleared). The coarse particles sink to the bottom and then it is filtered. Then the clear fruit wine is ready for the further production process. To prevent oxidation, the drink is pasteurized and / or sterile filtered and then bottled.
Tomato wine
Something new on the wine market is made by the Belgian Pascal Miche. He lives in Canada today and the man makes tomato wine there. According to a recipe his grandfather invented in the thirties. Grandpa Miche´s first name was Omer and to allow his grandfather to share in the honor of his new product, Pascal called his tomato wine “Omerto”, a combination of Omer and tomato. Two aperitif wines have entered the market; a dry and a sweeter variant. Both are totally incomparable in taste with "normal" wine and, strangely enough, they also do not taste like tomatoes...
The origin of tomato wine is "due" to the food shortage in the 1930s. Omer Miche grew tomatoes and had an exceptionally large and good tomato harvest. Because throwing away food was out of the question and it was not possible to eat all tomatoes at once, part of this harvest had to be saved. In view of the limited possibilities of cold storage at that time, Omer and his wife came up with a brilliant idea: they started applying the process of vinification, or winemaking, to their tomatoes. Of course, that started by trial and error. You don't invent a new drink from today to tomorrow. But in the end he did it. The recipe remained in the hands of the Miche family for four generations. For several years Pascal played with the idea to further develop that recipe and to commercialize the tomato wine of his ancestors.
In the end, a trip to Canada was the deciding factor. Pascal: “I was a butcher and caterer in La Louvière, where my great-grandparents also lived. My specialty was meat preparations based on beer. When I was invited by some chefs in Québec to teach them how to cook with beer, I also let them taste my tomato wine blindly. Everyone was amazed. No one could believe that that delicious drink was made from tomatoes. Omerto also doesn't taste like tomatoes at all. The vinification process brings out the aromas that are hidden behind the fruit. "
Nowadays the tomato wine is being exported to the United States and Europe.
Roel Peters RP-Vinos USA
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