What's Really in Your Wine?

The various ingredients that vintners often add to make conventional wines taste and look as expected include, (clockwise from top left) fish bladder extract for clarifying, potassium sorbate for stabilizing, sugar for strengthening, Mega Purple for darker color and sweetening, liquid made from shrimp shells for clarifying and bentonite powder for clarifying.

“You can literally manipulate everything about a wine,” says Isabelle Legeron, the author of “Natural Wine” and the first French woman to earn the title of Master of Wine. Her mission, she adds, is to let the world know that most of what we drink is “grape juice and a bunch of other stuff.”

From “Bring on the Natural Wines” by Jeff Gordinier for the New York Times T Magazine, 2016; Photo by Joshua Scott

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