Wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by the fermentation of the juice of fruits, usually grapes. Although a number of other fruits — such as plum, elderberry and blackcurrant — may also be fermented, only grapes are naturally chemically balanced to ferment completely without requiring extra sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients. Non-grape wines are called fruit wine or country wine. Other products made from starch based materials, such as barley wine, rice wine (sake), are more similar to beers. Beverages made from other fermentable material such as honey (mead), or that is distilled, such as brandy, are not wines. The English word wine and its equivalents in other languages are protected by law in many jurisdictions.

Etymology

The word wine comes from the Old English win, which derives from the Proto-Germanic winam, an early borrowing from the Latin vinum, "wine" or "(grape) vine" — itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *win-o (cf. Ancient Greek οῖνος oînos). The fact that all branches of Semitic have a nearly identical term for grape suggests a prehistoric loan into Indo-European from that family.

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