The Story of Wine

"O, you invisible spirit of wine, if you have no name to be known by, Let us call you 'Devil'."

- Shakespeare.

"Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy."

- Benjamin Franklin.

Seen as both a curse from Hell and a divine gift, or just a way to help your food down, wine is one of the oldest yet simplest drinks known to human beings. Wine is made from grapes. They are quite a common fruit, growing on long, low-lying vines that also produce very edible leaves. They prefer a Mediterranean climate but grow in many other parts of the world. The fruit of these vines, the grapes themselves, are pleasantly sweet and very juicy and so they were soon used for juice as well as eating. Freshly squeezed grapes make a very good fruit juice. And grape juice might have remained just that but for a unique quality.

On virtually all grape skins, there grows a light bloom. It is a kind of yeast and it is exactly what is needed to turn the crushed grapes and their skins into a lightly alcoholic liquid (9 - 14%). And, this process just happens naturally. If you leave a few litres of grape juice with the skins still in it, placed in a barrel or pitcher, when you come back a couple of weeks later, you will find that it has turned into wine. All you have to do is pour it into a glass or cup and drink it. Or, if you leave it for several months, it will increase its alcohol levels and, usually, greatly improve the flavour.

No wonder, then, that firm evidence of human wine production goes back more than eight thousand years to Georgia in the Caucasus region, and it is almost certainly much older. Some grapes are better suited to this fermentation process than others and so, soon after this, the best grapes were transferred all across the ancient world. In this way, wine became common in many areas of the Eurasian land mass. Its intoxicating effects and often delicious taste were what made it so popular but it quickly took on other and more important functions than mere pleasure.

Perhaps most important to human civilisation was wine’s use as a water steriliser. Throughout wine’s long past, it has been added to large pitchers of water and stirred. The wine would be 10% of the liquid which meant that the total alcohol content in the water would be around 1% - 2%. This created 'pink water' sterilised by the alcohol in the wine but weak enough to drink in large amounts without getting drunk. The wine additive also disguised bad flavours in the water and the pink colour would tell people if the water had been sterilised or not so that untreated water would not be used by mistake. However, if people wanted to get 'merry', they simply added less water, or no water at all, to their wine.

The other very common use has been in ritual and religion. Many ancient religions, usually polytheist, had wine rituals. Religious cannibalism was much more common thousands of years ago and wine may have been used as a representation of blood-drinking ceremonies. The only modern relics of these old wine rituals are Christian, especially the Catholic mass, where wine is taken; and at Kiddush, a Jewish festival when all good Jews are expected to drink four cups of wine as a religious duty. Another major world religion, Islam, completely forbids drinking alcohol and, these days, many strict Christian sects also do the same.

At this point, we should mention that there is an incredible variety of types of wine. First, there are the main, basic types. These are red wine, made from grapes that are dark red, purple or even black. Red wine is not usually bubbly and is the most common choice to drink with food. White wine is made from white grapes, actually light green in colour and producing a pale yellow drink. They are normally a little lighter in alcohol than the reds. Rosé (i.e. 'pink') wine is made from dark grapes but the skins are removed from the pressed juice quite early. Sparkling wine is bubbly or gassy and though it can be red or rosé, it is almost always white.

Another great advantage of wine since its ancient beginnings is that, in the right conditions, it can be stored for years, even decades, and still be very drinkable when it is finally opened. In fact, it is a feature of the drink that many wines (though not most) get better as they get older. However, for that to happen, the storage process must be right. Stone, fired clay, glass jars and bottles and even leather bags are ways wine can be kept. The best kind of stopper for the bottle is one made of cork. Cork is a tree, common in traditional wine growing areas. The bark of the cork tree is thick but light and spongy. This sponginess allows the cork to be easily cut to shape and fitted very tightly into the neck of a bottle without breaking it. The cork is also gas permeable but lets no liquid through. This means that it allows the gases that come off the wine to slowly escape and so not explode the bottle, but it keeps one hundred per cent of the wine in.

Many of these developments in wine making, and the defining and the hybridisation of classic grapes happened in Europe in the last few thousand years. Only the far north of Europe, places like Scandinavia or Scotland, produce no wine; but production is concentrated in the South, especially in those countries that are on or near the Mediterranean Sea. France, traditionally, has dominated the wine world with most of the best grapes and wine coming from there. Italy is also a major producer as are Spain and Portugal, Germany and Austria, all with their different traditions and styles and all exporting across the globe.

Major wine production outside Western Europe started in North Africa. In the mid to late 19th century, a terrible fungus attacked and destroyed most of the vineyards in France and some other European countries. In order to supply the large and thirsty French wine market, French wine growers took their operation to the Algerian coastal region, Algeria being a French colony at the time, and for years most French table wine came from there. The French vineyards have long since recovered.

At around this same time, and growing ever since, the New World began to develop wine regions wherever there happened to be a Mediterranean climate. These included places like Chile and Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, California and British Columbia. Often, these new wine growing areas were started by immigrants from countries like Italy and Germany. They knew how to grow the grapes and make good wine but they could not achieve export standard because of inferior grapes and soil so almost all their wine was consumed locally or nationally. Then, a few decades ago, they began to bring in classic varietal grapevines from Europe, and experts helped them to improve the quality of the soil they used. Exports doubled and redoubled and wine critics in Europe and North America started to take the New World wines seriously and even to say some good things about them.

One effect of the New World wines is that these hotter climates produce stronger brands than fifty years ago. Red wines used to be about nine to eleven per cent alcohol. Nowadays, thirteen or fourteen per cent is much more usual.

Something that has created new markets for wine, be it from the Old or New World, has been the massive rise in wine-drinking in countries where, until recently, people hardly ever drank it. In some small part, this was helped when health researchers announced that people in France had a very low rate of heart attacks and that this was because of certain chemicals in red wine. These chemicals break down cholesterol in the body and prevent obesity.

Some people have pointed out that drinking wine in moderation also helps to reduce stress because it tends to relax those who drink it. However, along with any benefits the modern wine boom may have brought, it has created one or two problems. The new wine is not just stronger, it’s also much cheaper than it used to be and so public drunkenness and other alcohol-related social problems have increased. Meanwhile, wine sales continue to rise.

Drunkenness is not the only crime associated with wine. These days, wine forging is a rapidly growing business for some criminals. It can take two forms. One way is to forge the label of an expensive, vintage wine then stick it to a very old bottle of cheap wine. When sold at auction, it will go to a collector or investor who will pay thousands of dollars for a bottle of wine that they have no plans to drink so the chances of discovery are small. If the label is well forged then it’s a sure bet, and wine labels are far easier to forge than bank notes or works of art.

The other, less common form of wine forgery is to take an empty bottle of very expensive table wine and refill the bottle with a similar but far cheaper wine. The bottle is carefully re-corked and resealed – and resold. This criminal practice is most common in expensive, businessmen’s restaurants. Unless the person who drinks the wine is an expert, they almost certainly won’t notice.

From religion to crime, from health and hygiene to drunken singing, wine is part of daily life in more and more parts of the world. It has been that way in Europe for more than eight millennia. It looks like being with us for some time yet.