Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

grape, the berry or fruit of the grapevine, or vine, whose juice is the essential ingredient for making wine. A grape is raisin in French, uva in Italian and Spanish, and Rebe in German. The grapes produced by commercial viticulture are sold either as table grapes or drying grapes, or crushed and processed into wine or grape juice, grape concentrate, or rectified grape must. Wine production is, however, the most important use, accounting for some 80% of the world’s grape production. The solids, including stems, skins, seeds, and pulp, left after these juicing processes are called grape pomace. There are several hundred grapes to a bunch for wine grape varieties, and berries are individually relatively small.