Your Mom’s A Blog

Wine is nearly as old as beer.  To make wine really possible humans had to develop a better container.  Beer will ferment in anything that will hold water; wine requires something a little more genteel, in this instance pottery.  Once pottery was discovered (aside from the fact that it made it much easier to keep water out of things,) it allowed men to hold and ferment grape juice.

The grapes found throughout Europe and Asia are not the grapes American’s would general snack on (known as table grapes.)  Wine grapes that make the varietals we know today (pinot, merlot, etc.) are vitus vinifera.

In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt grains were more widely cultivated so beer was more widely available.  As Mesopotamian empires grew in wealth and expanded, areas ideal for viticulture (growing of vines) came under their control or influence. 

The earliest viticulture was very different from the viticulture of today.  The farmer would grow an orchard of some sort of fruit tree then cultivate the grape vines on the tree.  (To grow and cultivate grapes the vines need to climb something.  Today we build artificial trellises, in the past they used trees.)  Wine is more temperamental than beer.  It takes less grain to make X amount of beer than it takes to make the same amount of wine.  Wine needs to be stored more carefully and in ancient times an acre of land could yield more grain because vines had to grow on trees which were separated by greater distances.  Because grapes are less hearty than grain, they can only be grown under certain climactic conditions so transportation becomes an issue.  As a result of all these factors wine in Mesopotamia and Egypt was generally much more expensive.

All the previously mentioned factors helped make wine a more “civilized” beverage and marker of wealth and status in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.  As trade spread around the Mediterranean other cultures, specifically the Greeks, came into contact with other wine drinking cultures.  The Greeks thought themselves superior indeed and began distinguishing themselves from the “barbarians” by their wine drinking habits.  (They were distinct in many other ways, thought, dress, manner, etc., but wine and beer drinking were universal and offered the Greeks a way to distinguish themselves on ground held in common with all other cultures.)

The Greeks had a very distinctive culture.  They were fond of intellectual pursuits such as philosophy and rhetoric.  They were also fond of drinking parties called symposia.  The Greeks had a love hate relationship with wine.  They thought it was a tasty and safe drink, but they believed over indulgence could cause insanity.  For this reason the Greeks generally mixed water with their wine, anywhere from 2 parts water to 1 part wine all the way up to 20 parts water to one part wine (this was for their concentrated wines.)  Wine mixed 1:1 with water was still thought of as strong wine and should be avoided.

As the Greeks expanded their colonies across the Mediterranean they spread wine culture with them.  For the first time wines became known for their region of production (the wine from Lesbos was particularly popular.)  After the Romans came to power Greek wine culture became ubiquitous.  The primary difference was that the availability of wine made good wine a status symbol.  Roman culture became stratified by the type of wine consumed.  More over, the expansionist nature of the Romans brought wine culture as far north as Britain, south into Saharan Africa and east to the Indus valley in India.  Retired soldiers, politicians, merchants and almost anyone else dreamed of cultivating vineyards for the production of wine.  Even after the western portion of the Roman Empire fell to the “barbarians” the new kingdoms that arose maintained the vineyards and expanded where they could.

The spread of Christianity and the development of the concept of Christendom solidified the importance of wine in Euro-Christian culture, especially as a way of drawing a distinction between Christians and Muslims.  Wine played a central role in the traditions of the Catholic Church as being one half of the Eucharist.  Christ’s first miracle of turning water into wine, as well as repeated references to wine in the New Testament made wine a point of religious pride.  In contrast wine and beer were, if not expressly forbidden, strongly discouraged in Islam.  Though the particular warning says nothing of beverages made from anything beside grapes and grains, a general prohibition was established for all Islam (even if it wasn’t widely enforced as it was Arab scientists who perfected the distillation of wine into brandy.)

Wine continued to grow and thrive throughout Europe with the notable exception of the British Isles.  When colonization of the New World began, England tried to establish viticulture in their colonies.  Unfortunately vitus vinifera would not thrive in such a harsh climate as Virginia and northward.  Furthermore, native American vines, vitus lubrusca, did not (and many still think so) produce palatable wine.  By a strange twist however, vitus lubrusca saved vitus vinifera wine in the 19^th century.  An outbreak of phylloxera decimated European vineyards.  A hybrid with vitus lubrusca root stock (which is naturally phylloxera resistant) was grafted onto the roots of vitus vinifera all over Europe to save the wine industry there.

Though there has always been a wine industry in the United States, the best wine producing regions (save for a few good New England locations) weren’t sufficiently settled until the 1850’s through the 1890’s.  Even then it took along time before the American wine making industry came into its own and was well regarded by the rest of the world.  Not until the early 1970’s did west coast wine makers start producing wines that were considered excellent on the world stage.  Today all 50 states (including Alaska apparently) produce wine.  Within the last decade or so, the preference for wine has matched or started to outpace the preference for beer and spirits.  This has a few major benefits:  More wine of a high quality will be produced locally which will be cheaper and easier to acquire.  The health benefits of wine (in moderation) have been proven, especially in helping to prevent heart disease.