Why doesn't wine taste like grape juice?

[Isaac]

I drank the Blood of Christ, and ate The Body of Christ earlier today and I was expecting the Blood to taste like sweet fruit juice.

Why did the Romans love wine so much, when they could've just drank Egyptian beer and enjoyed fresh fruit juice?

 

[Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake]

Somebody never had a bad night with Manischewitz.

 

[WinchesterPremium]

Wine does taste like grape juice.

You didn't drink wine you drank the blood of Christ two different things.

 

[I Love Beef]

You're drinking brut. Always look for dessert wines or demi sec or doux.

 

[CaptainTrips]

Cos its fermented? Idk, if wine tasted like grape juice we'd have a bunch of children being drunker than cooter brown

 

[BelUwUga]

For the same reason vinegar does not taste like wine. It's the degradation process. While the Romans surely could enjoy grape juice, it has a shelf-life measured in weeks. A sealed container of wine lasts for years on the other hand (though it will turn to vinegar eventually when exposed to air). While they could make beer that requires more work and heat that could be better applied to other things.

 

[Penis Drager]

While the Romans surely could enjoy grape juice

Non alcoholic grape juice was invented in 1869.

 

[Some JERK]

The yeast eats the sugar, farts out CO2 and pisses alcohol. So... Less sugar and more carbonic acid and alcohol. That's why.

 

[BelUwUga]

Non alcoholic grape juice was invented in 1869.

What? Non-alcoholic grape juice was invented the first time someone crushed a grape and drank the juice before it could ferment. This is a very short shelf life but it's not an instant process. 1869 sounds like pasteurization maybe? Or some other process that made it have market viability at-scale.

 

[Retink]

For the same reason vinegar does not taste like wine. It's the degradation process. While the Romans surely could enjoy grape juice, it has a shelf-life measured in weeks. A sealed container of wine lasts for years on the other hand (though it will turn to vinegar eventually when exposed to air). While they could make beer that requires more work and heat that could be better applied to other things.

I wonder if there were Romans back in the day saying they won't drink the Posca like we have people today saying the won't eat the bugs when confronted with Beyond burgers.

 

[Testacles Maximus]

They taste exactly the same. You should see a doctor about your tongue.

 

[Gimmick Account]

It's the degradation process.

It's more transformative than degradation. Carbohydrates like sugar are a major component of what you'd identify as grape but these are mostly or completely converted during fermentation.
A lot of the grape flavour compounds aren't metabolised (although other "fruity" compounds are/can be generated) but the overall profile is shifted drastically.

Ethanol is simpler than the sugars it's generally made from (it can take a few steps though depending) but the other products are also an important component of something like wine.
It's more true to say it of vinegar but that's still a fermentation process with acid bacteria so it depends whether it was intentional or not.

Edit:

Why did the Romans love wine so much, when they could've just drank Egyptian beer and enjoyed fresh fruit juice?

Ancient beer processes were kind of shitty, mysterious, and the product was piss-weak.

Grapes have the benefit of a natural yeast coating on the skin so you basically can't fuck up (there's an ancient recipe we've found that basically says "put some grape juice on the mantle in your living room for a couple months, done").
And compared to beer made from grains which you need to malt in order to liberate more complex carbohydrates, the simple sugar in fruit is easier to metabolise and there's a relatively huge amount of it.

So as a result you get relatively strong alcohol without having to do much compared to weak, laborous pisswater.
Supposedly it was so strong (they may have also concentrated it somehow though idk and I'm not looking it up) that they liked to mix it with fruit juice as well, so they did appreciate it fresh too if that makes you happy

 

[Grub]

Alcohol.

 

[Lucky Jim]

Yeast is single-celled fungi introduced to grape juice; they consume sugars in the juice and as excreta they produce carbon dioxide (which escapes to the atmosphere) and alcohol which is left in the wine. So in making wine you're changing the product.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

All fruit juice is technically alcoholic. Grape juice is nearly 1% alcohol by volume. Good luck getting drunk on it, though.