A Brief History of Wine

Although archeologists have discovered what appears to be grape residue on a 9,000 year old terra cotta pot in China and theorized that it may be the world's first known wine, wine as we know it today is a European discovery that traces its origins to the Caucasus Mountains in eastern Europe. Grapes with the genus vitus vinifera grew wild in and around the forests there. Sometime about 5,000 years B.C. it was discovered that if you collected and crushed wild grapes to make juice, something magical happened. The juice would bubble and foam and after awhile would no longer be as sweet. Those who drank it possessed its "spirit" and a feeling of euphoria and well-being. They became mad for some more.

Over the next millennia, the noble and wealthy classes had boats built to transport earthenware jars of the prized beverage down rivers to their palaces in places like Babylon and Mesopotamia. From the outset, wine was a beverage for the wealthiest people.

It fell to the Greeks to democratize wine for the masses. The art of viticulture was developed, and for the first time organized planting and cultivation was carried out on a large scale. Wax sealed amphorae would store the wine for year-round consumption. The entire population was able to drink wine on a regular basis.

Drawing on Greek innovation, as they did with most things, the Romans planted vines everywhere they conquered, all the way north to England and Germany's present day wine belt. But it was in the welcoming Mediterranean climate that wine grapes grew the best, and wine imbedded itself into the culture of its people. A vivid example of how deeply is seen today in the sacraments of the Christian and Jewish faiths, both of which use wine in their religious services. Though Mohammed banned wine from earthly use, his scriptures promised abundant wine to the faithful in the afterlife. Wine became a staple in Mediterranean households.

The production of wine evolved slowly during the first millennium A.D. The main keepers of the vinous flame were Christian monasteries in Mediterranean countries. The Carthusians and the Benedictines were particularly gifted winemakers, and their recordkeeping and experimentation resulted in grape growing and winemaking innovations that are still used today. As the art of hybridization continued through the middle ages and into the Renaissance, vineyards that produced the best wines became famous, the wines produced there transported to palaces and castles throughout much of Europe. Peasants farmed their own grapes and made their own wines, but places like Burgundy were already producing superior wine as early as the 12th century.

Wood barrels gradually replaced terra cotta jugs as the best way to store and transport wine as early as 50 B.C. With the production of glass bottles and the introduction of the cork sometime during the 17th century, people were able to store wine away more easily. The transporting of wine, however, was mostly by moving casks of wine in barges, ships or overland. When the merchant class developed, wine merchants would then sell wine to the public either by the bottles they would fill and sell or by filling up their customer's own jugs. This practice continued well into the 20th century, but it was filled with problems. Unscrupulous merchants could mislabel wine and charge higher prices. They could also dilute finer wines with water yet sell them as elite wines. The addition of elderberries or dark wine from hotter areas to add color was a common practice.

Estate bottling was the answer, and Baron Phillipe de Rothschild is credited with developing the practice of bottling wine on the premises at Bordeaux' Chateau Mouton Rothschild to control quality and put an end to those kinds of fraud. Glass bottles were carefully placed in special wood crates, as they are today.

Until Louis Pasteur's famous studies on microbiology and fermentation in the second half of the 19th century, making wine was an art passed down from master to apprentice, from father to son. Generations of trial and error resulted in a methodology that produced results without really understanding why. With the science of viniculture (the making of wine) came innovations such as cleanliness and temperature-controlled fermentation in stainless steel tanks. Combined with refrigerated transport, wine lovers could experience wines from around the world as they tasted at their point of origin. Never has there been such a cornucopia of wine available to consumers as there is today.

Although wine grape growing has been widely practiced in Europe and in its colonies in South Africa, Australia, California, Chile and Argentina for over two hundred years, the technological revolution of the second half of the twentieth century has allowed grape growing and winemaking to advance at breakneck speed. Wine regions in the Old World and New have benefited from technology to make cleaner, more transportable wine even in areas that need irrigation to sustain grape growing.

The prosperity of the world's economies in the decades after World War II created a demand for consumer items associated with wealth and prestige. Where wine was once a modest staple on European dinner tables, there emerged a rising demand for premium wine in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Fueled by the influence of wine journalism, worldwide demand for fine wine has exploded creating iconic wines in regions where there were none. Some newly created wines from California, Australia, Italy, France and most recently Spain sell in three digit territory, some made in wine regions that were previously used for jug wine. Wines for non-wine producing societies are usually made to stand on their own -- also called "cocktail wines" -- because the culture has no indigenous tradition of wine at the table. This results in fuller bodied, riper and excessively alcoholic wines inexplicably favored by wine critics tasting wine after wine at a single setting.

As wineries and vineyards are bought out by huge corporations, there is increasing pressure on winemakers to make wines in the more aggressive styles that appeal to wine critics as part of their marketing strategy. A good review can make a reputation of a wine that can raise its value for decades. Many worry that this practice may result in losing individual regional character at the expense of a single international style.

As consumer cultures continue to buy and enjoy wine from producer cultures, drinking habits are slowly fragmenting. More and more Americans are cooking foods with Mediterranean-style ingredients such as olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs. When they eat these foods, they discover alcoholic wines don't mesh as well as Mediterranean wines do. In fact, there is a large trend to crisper, less oaky wines for that reason. One result is a huge rise in Italian Pinot Grigio sales and dry rosé sales in America. Crisper wines from France's Loire Valley are yet to be discovered on a large scale, but they also provide respite from the assault of high-alcohol cocktail wines at the table.

The future of wine will continue to fragment, as new wines are created for some and traditions or fought for by others. One hopes that traditional wines remain popular enough to keep their identity intact. Otherwise it's McWine for all of us.