------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Documented by Goa Desc Resource Centre Ph:2252660 Website: www.goadesc.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Clippings on the web: http://www.goadesc.org/mem/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ Fun with Fruit Winemaking ------------------------------------ By Nandkumar Kamat
When my ex-research student and present project assistant, Kumud Phadte pleaded with me to have a sip of wine I was initially hesitant. "Taste it sir, it is really excellent!" she said. I sniffed it, then took a sip, closed my eyes to "understand" the taste and the flavour and instantly I knew that we had met with success. The wine was superb. Seven other volunteers who were offered a sample, confirmed it.
Recently we, at the Botany department of Goa University tasted the success of the first wine made anywhere in the world from the local adanv or adama fruits (Mimusops kauki, closely related to Sapota or Chikoo fruits). It is a rare wine because the fruit itself is rare and not cultivated in large number anywhere. Besides it is difficult to gather enough number of fruits to make wine. Fortunately I could get more than a kilogram of these fruits during March, the fruiting season by booking my order.
The adanv trees are majestic, shade giving, beautiful, evergreen trees which are found near the churches in coastal Goa. The Jesus Nazareth Chapel at Siridao has many beautiful adanv trees. The tree was introduced by the Portuguese from Brazil. The light to reddish brown oval fruit has 2-3 hard, black seeds and the pulp tastes just like chikoo.
We attempted to make wine from these fruits because nobody had tried it before and those who could have tried could not have used the same yeast strain which we had used. For the first time we were successful in domesticating a natural yeast which we cultivated in our lab to make good quality wine. This would further help us in producing large amount of wine making yeast. Such yeast strains are patented and are imported in India at heavy cost.
We aim to produce wines from every species of fruit in Goa. At present experiment is in progress to make kokum wine (Garcinia indica fruits) a project sponsored by Western Ghats Kokum Foundation.
Next on the list are mango, cashew and jackfruit pulp wines with our own yeast strains. There is fun, joy and excitement when you try novel wines such as fruit wines because almost everyone understands wine and its hundreds of varieties as those made by fermenting grapes.
People don't seem to understand you when you say that you are making a 'banana' or 'watermelon' wine. But the truth is that any natural edible product that has sugars and carbohydrates and is fermentable can be converted into a wine.
Our emphasis at the Botany department is on fruit wines because these would be the beverages for health, youth and longevity in the next few years owing to their unique ingredients like polyphenols, resveretrol and pigments. The red wines would be much more in demand as compared to the white wines.
Now some basic aspects about the art that we intend to perfect. Wines are as old as civilization. Wine making was a sacred art known to the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotemians and the Greeks. But the Romans made the wine famous in history. Wines are fermented alcoholic products.
The most important ingredients for wine making are the unicellular micro-organisms called yeasts. Yeasts have a cocktail of biological catalysts called enzymes which convert the sugars to alcohol and other flavour producing compounds. The property of yeasts could have been discovered accidentally by women while gathering food during the prehistoric period. As compared to many other fruits, grapes have the strongest capacity for producing natural wines.
The wild fermenting grapes were found to be useful by the first crude wine makers. Then the vineyards were created. The English movie 'A Walk in the Clouds' has picturised a romantic story on the backdrop of the life in a typical vineyard. Wine makers learnt the art to preserve the crude yeast cultures in the fermenting grape pulp called 'must'. This was the birth of yeast biotechnology.
There are hundreds of yeast species associated with the plants. Not all of these have the fermentation capacity. Yeasts belonging to Genus Saccharomyces are most valued in wine making because these are efficient sugar fermentors. Before microscopy was discovered the wine makers were ignorant about the yeasts. After development of microbiology, the wine making technology was standardized.
Today wine production is a huge global industry. Elite strains of wine making yeasts are produced and patented.
Homemade wines is a cottage industry in many countries. Due to the Portuguese influence it was introduced in Goa. Many families in Salcete, Bardez and Tiswadi produce wines but these procedures are crude and the yeast is commercial baker's yeast. The results however are found to be satisfactory because personal attention is given by the wine makers. It is impossible to reproduce these domestic recipes at industrial scale. This is here our project comes into picture.
Our aim is to standardise the procedure for mass production of classic fruit wines. We need small samples of all types and varieties of very ripe fruits (especially varieties of mango, cashew and kokum during the present season) from the local people and in future we plan to hold a workshop on wine making technology to encourage local small scale bio entrepreneurs.
Watch out for the announcement. Right now, raise a toast to our success in Adanv wine making - which is also a breakthrough in yeast biotechnology. --------------------------------------------- The Navhind Times 28/4/04 page 14 ---------------------------------------------
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