Acids in wine responsible for the sour taste of vinegar. During fermentation, activity by yeast cells naturally produces a small amount of acetic acid. If the wine is exposed to oxygen, "Acetobacter" bacteria will convert the ethanol into acetic acid. This process is known as the “acetification” of wine and is the primary process behind wine degradation into vinegar. An excessive amount of acetic acid is also considered a wine fault. A taster's sensitivity to acetic acid will vary, but most people can detect excessive amounts at around 600 mg/l. Ascorbic acid, also known as vitamin C, is found in young wine grapes
French wine traditionally been the largest consumer of its own wines. However, wine consumption has been dropping in France for 40 years. During the decade of the 1990s, per capita consumption dropped by nearly 20 percent. Therefore, French wine producers must rely increasingly on foreign markets. However, consumption has also been dropping in other potential markets such as Italy, Spain and Portugal. The result has been a continuing wine glut, often called the wine lake. This has led to the distillation of wine into industrial alcohol as well as a government program to pay farmers to pull up their grape vines through