(BDLive) - WHEN the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears at Elsinore, Horatio cries out: "This is wondrous strange." Hamlet, ready to believe in the apparition, replies: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." What is unlikely and amazing to some people is commonplace to others with a less constrained frame of reference.

The average wine drinker believes in a set of conventions (many never really fully verbalised) about the art and craft of wine. These include the idea that the production process entails fermenting the juice of crushed grapes, after which very little is added or subtracted. The list of acceptable manipulations would probably include the use of commercial yeast, sulphur dioxide (grudgingly, and as an essential antiseptic) and oak barrels (especially for red wines). Fining and filtration — if even thought about — are implicitly disapproved of: selling a wine with "unfiltered" on the label is meant to convey a message of authenticity.