The crucial point is what happens to the fruit at color break, the membrane that seals it off from the plant at that point. It has all it is going to get from the plant at that point except water and without the risk of squirrels, hail, over-watering, heavy rains, hornworms, stink bugs, blister beetles, sunscald, etc. etc. Compare a couple of the same variety and see for yourself.

Dave

I am for the dilution theory though (less water contents, more flavor). But if my tomatoes do not cracking, rotting, splitting problems or the squirrels and the bird don't beat me in being the first, I would rather let them fully ripen on the wine.

I think I will conduct a "taste test" of my own this season to find out.

stage1, slight blush at the bottom
" 2, some color about

I decided to get the story straight so went agoogling and there are actually six stages and I linked to that below, with colors.

For many years I was growing many hundreds of plants and varieties and did a LOT of seed saving b/c at the time I was listing several hundred varieties in the SSE Yearbooks.

I never picked fruits until there was color half way up, and never processed them for seed until fully ripe b'c it is important to have as much juice as possible for the fermentation process.

So I always had half ripe fruits, sometimes less than half ripe, to let ripen up, and I never kept notes but can't say that all varieties picked at half ripe and then ripened up, and I didn't do it indoors, too many fruits to deal with, tasted the same as eating ripe ones picked off the vine. Pretty close, though.

Carolyn

Ethylene is normally produced by the fruits in the ripening process, It's one reason that some folks still put fruits in paper bags and add either a cut apple or a banana, since they produce ethylene as well, and the paper bag allows for concentration of that gas.Same story for those who wrap unripened fruits in newspapers.

Most greenhouse tomatoes these days are grown hydroponially and many of them are darn good tasting. There's a hydroponic tomato place near me and their fruits are sold all over upstate NY and they take them to the Green Market in NYC as well

The first time I went there to see how the operation was run Phyllis asked if I smoked, I said yes I did, and she wouldn't let me in.LOL. I tried to tell her about TMV but made no progress.

I stopped smoking for a while, was let into several of the greenhouses and it was really interesting to see, and yes, the tomatoes they grow, special ones for hydroponic growing, tasted darn good.

Carolyn

I'll even go one step further against the lacking scientific evidence in the complex flavor of tomatoes in stating that tomatoes ripening in cooler Autumn weather have poorer flavor profile and those tomatoes found under the tangle of vegetation that never develop more than a pink color take on the musty rotten flavor. There are some who will swear that the imitation flavor additives taste better than the real thing but common sense tells us better.