How to turn water into wine, with raisins

While modern wineries typically use cultured S cerevisiae, it is thought that ancient wine production relied on the natural fermentation process of storing crushed grapes in jars. However, research has revealed that S cerevisiae rarely colonizes grape skins, casting doubt on the use of fresh grapes for alcohol fermentation.

The results revealed that soaking sun-dried raisins in water is a successful method of creating wine. While only one incubator-dried sample and two of the combination samples successfully fermented, all three samples of sun-dried raisins in water fermented and yielded significantly higher ethanol concentrations. In the samples that were successful, the scientists also measured an overall decline in species diversity, but a higher abundance of alcohol-fermenting yeasts. These results suggest that, long before Jesus supposedly did so, ancient peoples may have figured out how to turn water into wine using sun-dried raisins.

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