KEY POINTS:
Not all God's creatures can taste sugar. Cats and most dogs can't. Humans, of course, are mad about it.
We crave it, even though it rots our teeth, makes us fat and can turn our children into hyperactive psychos. Few things wow the palate like sugar; its effect is instant and dramatic.
It's not a drug, but it's awfully close. Recent research points to sugar triggering the release of opiates in the brain, bringing not only pleasurable feelings but also dulling pain.
Sugar is everything to wine. It roughly accounts for a quarter of the contents of a ripe grape, which is what makes the juice such an eager candidate for fermentation.
Wine, though, is an accidental by-product. It was certainly not the destination Nature had intended for the dark sweet berries of vitis vinifera.
Mother N's major concern is always for the genes to get passed on. To this end she made grapes for the birds.
Birds are up there with humanity in the sugar-loving camp and grapes provided an ideal in-flight lunch for our feathered friends, at the end of which the seeds got spread, handily accompanied by a natural fertiliser. (Which is all a grand irony, given the lengths wine producers go to these days to keep birds away from their vines).
Wine, like honey, was one of mankind's original widely available providers of sugared sweetness.
In ancient Egypt and Greece the grapes were so ripe and chocker with sugar that they fermented only slightly, making them weak in alcohol and honey-sweet.
Today we like to think we're far more sophisticated with the dry wines we mostly drink. But many of them are perhaps not as dry we imagine. This is especially true of today's Marlborough sauvignon blanc.
Gone are those acidic, dry, herbaceous 1980s sauvignons with an alcohol content of 12 per cent.
Now they're picking the grapes riper so they have higher sugar levels. This enables them to achieve alcohol levels of up to 14.5 per cent. Alcohol, which is fermented sugar, is itself a sweetener.
What's more, many Marlborough producers these days are also adding cane sugar at the end of the process. This is often described as a "finishing touch to improve mouthfeel and approachability".
No one seems to be complaining about this trend towards sweeter sauvignon blanc. The wine's crisp snap of natural acidity does help downplay the sweetness and keep the wine fresh.
But maybe we just love our sugar more than we like to admit.
RECOMMENDED
2007 Montana Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Welcome to 2007 ... florals and curranty notes greet the nostrils. The palate has roundness and good weight. The blackcurrant flavour is big and very enjoyable, the acids carry things to a lengthy finish. Price: $23.95
