Brewing - Hydroponic Wine...

[Fango]

SWIM was sat enjoying a nice glass of red the other night, and it struck him, if you can grow other natural drugs indoors, then why not wine? SWIM pondered for a little while and came to the conclusion that it is a perfectly viable thing to do, and could potentially have great results.

Now, SWIM's not a Biologist, botanist or a wine geek, but from what he can figure, wines taste different for a variety of reasons, some of the main being, soil, climate, and strain of grape; these factors coupled with the way that the wine is distilled after the grapes are picked. Using modern indoor growth techniques SWIM can see no reason why the perfect grapes cannot be grown hydroponically, the grower can provide the perfect nutes for the type of result they want, and keep a maticulous eye on heat and light cycles.

The only real problems SWIM saw was firstly the completely un-eco friendlyness of it all, and two, wether or not the soil plays a massive role in the taste of the grape, or if the nutrients that the soil carries are responsible.

Anyway, SWIM is posting this just to see if anyone else could shed some light, or just to spark up some debate between the wine geeks among us.

[Jatelka]

Terroir is what makes a wine.

It's how a Chablis tastes completely different to a big Aussie Chardonnay, even though they're made from the same grape, and using the same basic process

Terroir isn't just the soil, it's the sunshine, the air, and probably the karma of the winemaker!

But hydroponic vines: Now that would be a project!

[Fango]

This is how SWIMs fiance looked at it, she was saying that a "clinically grown wine" as she put it, would not appeal to a lot of people, which SWIM does understand.

However, looking at it scientifically, if you were to research the Terroir of the wine you want to create, for example. Annual precipitation, wind speeds, hours of light per day, soil PH and the levels of nutrients that occur naturally in the soil. The Terroir is something that can be replicated, and just because the plants are grown artificially, does not mean that the grower would by any means love them less.

The thing that struck SWIM about the idea was that you could potentially save some of the wines that are dying out, where the land is changing or the genetics are weakening, or whatever. Another aspect would be that the person making this wine, could be producing wine of a very high quality, but selling it at a more moderate price.

The analogy SWIM gave his fiance, althought a bit OTT, was "If you went to sainsbury's and saw a bottle of wine for £6 that claimed to be of the same quality of a £1000 bottle, wouldn't you buy that?".

SWIM thinks that it could turn the wine world upside down, but maybe he's being a bit optimistic.

[nEone]

The problem here is more about yield. Visit a vineyard - the thing that's most impressive is the sheer SIZE of the operation - the amount of land that's dedicated to careful tending of vines.

On a personal level - it's probably quite possible to grow a few vines hydroponically and make a few gallons of wine a year. I found this list of estimates online to give an idea of how much goes into each bottle:

Vines per acre—400

Pounds of grapes produced by one vine—8-12

Tons per acre—5 (average—can vary greatly)

Gallons of wine per ton of grapes—120

Gallons of wine per acre—800

Bottles per vine—10

Bottles per acre—4,000


On a commercial level - the expense involved would be substantial. Growing an acre's worth of vines hydroponically would be a pretty complicated feat.

Assume the figure above is for a professional vineyard -4,000 bottles of wine sold at $10/bottle = $40K gross - now figure in the cost of the bottling, the cost of the hydroponic system, the cost of the water, the lights, the wine-making equipment, labor, packaging and distribution...and suddenly the wine-maker is thinking about jacking his price up to something more like $100/bottle with the hope of breaking even and not having to sell the farm.

And that's before you even get around to trying to reverse-engineer the chemical composition of the dirt, the mineral content of the water and the air-quality that all contribute to make a specific wine from a given terroir so special.

[FrankenChrist]

I think artificial light instead of sunlight and water instead of rich soil will affect your taste, like it does with tomatoes.
Nevertheless, you made me curious.

[Stradivarius]

Homegrown wine could be rewarding as a hobby.As a business, not quite.Sun is free, earth is cheap and water falls from the sky from time to time.The electricity for light, the nutrients to substitute earth, and the water system would increase the cost for this huge time.Sure you could do this and make a couple of bottles for personal use.But it's expensive nonetheless.

[Luposlipophobia]

Growing grapes to make a fine wine is infinitely more involved than you think.