Andre tells story on how wine evolves from grape at GTCO food & drink festival

Guaranty Trust Bank Holding Company Plc GTCO Food & Drink Festival with a theme that insists on “Everything Food and Drink” entered the day-two at the GTCentre, Oniru, on May 2, 2026 where Andre Huston Musk in his master class reshaped how wine is experienced and understood as it evolves from the grape.

Andre, an iconoclastic sommelier, wine educator, and entrepreneur said that the growth of grapes requires climate, soil, and location matter.

However, he said, organic is the way in which the grapes are being grown, not using any pesticides, you can go one step further, with the use of biodynamic, while the harvest is picked by hands or by machine sometimes at night.

He explained that the grape is crushed and pressed to release the juice, adding that the red skin stays with the juice while the white juice separated early is called ‘MUST’

According to him, in order to carry out fermentation, harvesting timing is critical as aging will arise when the wine rests in tanks or barrels and oak added.

He said that the fermentation process determines the level of alcohol in the wine.

He noted that in bottling sometimes wine is filtered, bottled, sealed and labelled as some are ready now, while some age longer.

Commenting on how wine is enjoyed, Andre, that one can swirl, taste and pair with food or be enjoyed solo.

Fielding questions from the audience on how does one turn grape juice into wine and how does the whole fermentation process work?

Responding, Andre said this process is fairly simple and it could be complicated in some ways, because it’s a different process for white and red.

He underscored that overall the process is, “grapes come in, they’re harvested, they’re crushed, in some places they do what they call foot treading, where you’re actually stomping the grape with your feet. A lot of times it’s just put in a vessel,and then the weight from the grapes on the top, actually crush the weights on the bottom. And then you’re doing what’s called punch down, as the grapes are like, being crushed. The skins and the pits and all that, kind of, rise to the top, right, and create a cap.

“And what you want to do is kind of keep immersing the cap down into the wine. So, it can pick up color, and all the nuances that the grapes have. To start fermentation, yeast is added. So, yeasts are these little cells that are introduced, and they actually eat up all the sugars, and what’s kind of different is then they expel alcohol, and then after that it’s bottled.

There are a few steps in between bottling, filtration, clarifying the wine, and then it goes into the bottle.

So, another audience asked Andre why the wine fridge is necessary?

Andre explained that if you get to a point where you would like a wine fridge, there is a purpose to them, adding “They keep the wine at a steady temperature is what you need. You want it at the correct temperature.”

 On white wine glass, Andre said “the idea behind the white wine is, it’s going to be a smaller glass. You don’t need as much air to surface ratio, So, if you pull the white wine out of a wine fridge, that’s normally at 55 degrees, you probably want to put it in the refrigerator for a few minutes, you probably want to put it on ice. You want to kind of be able to capture the aroma. So, a white wine glass tends to be a little bit smaller than a red wine.”

For a red wine glass, he noted that it kind of acts as a mini decanter, that gives you a little bit more surface to air ratio, as you can swirl the glass, and then be able to enjoy it.

According to him, red wines served to you warm, just really accentuates the alcohol, so you get more of that burning sensation in your mouth of alcohol and so you want to serve your red wines, around 65 to 72 degrees, something like that.

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