Chinese entrepreneur ferments fish into wine

There are all kinds of things that wine shouldn’t be made from. Fish, for example.

Lest you think I’ve been sampling too many cabernets, news services have reported that a Chinese entrepreneur is launching a company to ferment fish into wine.

Sun Keman from the Chinese port city of Dalian has formed the Dalian Fisherman’s Song Maritime Biological Brewery, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency, as reported by The Crush, the California Association of Winegrape Growers newsletter.

The company intends to clean, boil and ferment fish for making wine. The product is said to be nutritious and low in alcohol.

The article, also reported in Reuters, leaves several questions unanswered — such as, why?

Other questions that occur to me include: Is that a red or a white wine? What sorts of food do you pair with fish wine? Chips, maybe?

There were no tasting notes with the articles, but I could imagine wine writers eloquently describing hints of sturgeon, aromas of sea cucumber, an anchovy finish.

Robert Parker’s 100-point scale takes on an entirely new meaning.

Fermented fish isn’t the only ungrape wine out there, of course. One can find all kinds of blackberry and cherry wines at some roadside stands.

I have a friend from Wisconsin who makes rhubarb wine, which apparently requires copious amounts of sugar to overcome the tartness of rhubarb.

Midwesterners also have been known to make dandelion wine, which is either a clever way to get rid of lawn weeds or a sign that those long winters have a negative effect on mental health.

There are even stranger things on the Internet and in wine recipe books.

Onion wine, for instance. “The Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook,” by Raymond Massaccesi, advises, “Don’t tell your friends what it is until they have tried some.”

Good thought. You might want to skip telling them after they have tried it as well.

Massaccesi also lists a potato wine and a coffee wine.

A Web site called Roxanne’s Kitchen has recipes for tomato wine, both red and green, as well as parsnip wine.

Roxanne advises aging all wines one year or more. She doesn’t say what to do with them after that.

Actually, some of the recipes cheat a bit: Massaccesi includes grape concentrate or raisins in several recipes.

Some of the recipes seem vaguely reminiscent of prison “pruno” — the illicit inmate concoction made from whatever fermentable materials they can filch at mealtimes.

And, sure enough, there are several Web sites with recipes for pruno, with detailed instructions for fermenting it in trash bags with hot tap water.

The favored ingredients seem to be oranges, fruit cocktail, ketchup and sugar.

Do not try this at home, kids. It tastes terrible, and a bad batch can rob your eyesight.

The inmates, the Web sites note, aren’t too particular about taste, just alcohol content.

The moral of all this rambling is thank God for grapes. The next time you turn your nose up at a white zinfandel, remember — it can get a lot worse.

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