A Brief History of Wine
Grape wine may date back before 3000 BC, but it is first known of with some certainty in Mesopotamia and Egypt around 2500-2000 BC. Since vineyards at that time were probably royal property, the common people would have drunk date wine and/or beer instead. So it is thought that the workers who built the pyramids received beer and bread as rations while the priests of Egypt lived on bread, goose, beef and wine. Wine made from dates probably predates grape wine and both may predate beer. Wine can ferment using the natural sugars in grapes and, especially, dates, but beer requires sprouting (malting) to produce enough sugar for fermentation.
By the time of the Greeks, after 1000 BC, wine making, along with olive oil, were the trademarks of Mediterranean civilization. The spread of Greek culture was considered synonymous with the spread of these two industries. Though, in reality, both had spread widely long before the Greeks, the Greeks were largely responsible for raising wine making and olive pressing to a successful commercial scale. Both wine and olive oil were the mainstays of Mediterranean trade as attested by the abundance of wine and oil containers found in storehouses and in shipwrecks throughout the Mediterranean from the Levant to Spain. Greek wines were often fermented in vats coated with pine resin, giving them a flavor now found only in the Greek retsina wines.
In Roman times, winemaking had reached a degree of sophistication as high as in modern times. Amphorae of wine were sealed with wax and labeled with the year, vineyard, producer and type of grape, much like a modern wine label. Most wines were drunk within 4 years of production, but some vintage wines were aged well over 20 years. The best wine in the Roman world was the Falernian wine from Italy, though later the wines of Gaul (modern France) surpassed the Italian wines in reputation. Wine was seldom drunk straight and was mixed with water and, sometimes spices, to the drinker’s taste.
The quality of wine making declined in the Middle Ages. In the lands where Islam had replaced the Roman Empire, wine drinking was in theory forbidden by he Moslem religion. Even in the Christian realms where wine was drunk aplenty, the quality was poor by modern or Roman standards. Nevertheless, wine and beer were staples of the medieval Christian diet, even in monasteries, possibly to the exclusion of water (which would have been largely unpotable by modern standards). It was only with the rise of the great European monarchies that the quality of wine production recovered, giving birth to the great European wine traditions that continue today.
Bordeaux, around this time, became a major wine center, and was the main source of wines being imported to England. It was also around this time that the monk, Dom Perignon (d. 1719), is thought to have developed not only the drink Champagne, but also the idea of bottling and corking wines. Prior to this, wine was generally stored in wooden barrels, which generally let in too much oxygen for proper long term storage (again, the Romans had done better with their sealed amphorae). Consequently, from the fall of Rome to the time of Dom Perignon, it was impossible to properly age a fine wine.
Port was developed around 1725 when the Portuguese began to combine their wines with brandy, thus arresting fermentation while there was still ample sugar. Port became a rival import to England with the wines of Bordeaux.
Wine making as we know it, with all its snobbery and pretension, but also all its wonderful variety of flavors and its attention to quality, really dates to the 19th Century. Perhaps the spread of European colonial empires led to a wider market so that wine making started to cater to more than just local tastes. This was also the period when Champagne became a popular drink throughout Europe.
The first wines produced in the Americas was produced by the Spanish in Florida in 1564 using native grapes. The Spanish also introduced wine production to California. This was done through the mission system, started by the Franciscan monk Junipero Serra in San Diego in 1769. The American wine industry was set back enormously by prohibition, but has obviously recovered since then.
American wines are roughly of two types. The Eastern North American wines are often made from native American grapes if the labrusca family. Wines made from labrusca will be very different from European wines. In contrast, most Californian wines are made from grapes whose ancestors were brought from Europe, so are more comparable to European varieties.
Wine has always been primarily an industry of the Mediterranean climate. Even today, although wines are produced in in Washington and New York states as well as in Germany, Hungary and many other, colder climates, the best wines still largely come from places with Mediterranean climates such as France, Italy, Spain and California. Even the Australian, Chilean and South African wine industries, also benefiting from Mediterranean climates, are slowly becoming contenders in the world’s wine markets.
For more information on wine history, here are some book suggestions:
Burgundy to Champagne : The Wine Trade in Early Modern France Buy the Book Today!
Food in Antiquity : A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples by Patricia Brothwell Buy the Book Today!
A History of Wine in America : From the Beginnings to Prohibition by Thomas Pinney Buy the Book Today!
The Story of Wine by Hugh Johnson Buy the Book Today!
Vintage Wine Book : A Pracatical Guide to the History of Wine, Winemaking, Classification, and Selection by Sommelier Executive Council, Norman Sickels, Anthony Verdoni Buy the Book Today!
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Email: michad03@mcrcr.med.nyu.edu
