Wednesday, May 1, 2013


Wine History


Little is actually known of the early history of wine. It is plausible that early foragers and farmers made alcoholic beverages from wild fruits, including grapes of the species Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris, ancestor to modern wine grapes (V. vinifera). This would have become easier following the development of pottery vessels in the later Neolithic of the Near East, about 11,000 BCE.
In his book Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), Patrick McGovern argues that the domestication of the Eurasian wine grape and winemaking could have originated in the territory of the modern-day country of Georgia, spreading south from there.
The oldest known winery is located in the "Areni-1" cave in the Vayots Dzor Province of Armenia. Dated around 4100 BCE, the winery contains a wine press, fermentation vats, jars, and cups. Archaeologists also found grape seeds and vines of the species V. vinifera. Commenting on the importance of the find, McGovern said, "The fact that winemaking was already so well developed in 4000 BCE suggests that the technology probably goes back much earlier.

 wine history could follow the developments and science of grape growing and wine production; another might separately trace the spread of wine commerce through civilization, but there would be many crossovers and detours between them. However the timeline is followed, clearly wine and history have greatly influenced one another.
Fossil vines, 60-million-years-old, are the earliest scientific evidence of grapes. The earliest written account of viniculture is in the Old Testament of the Bible which tells us that Noah planted a vineyard and made wine. As cultivated fermentable crops, honey and grain are older than grapes, although neither mead nor beer has had anywhere near the social impact of wine over recorded time.

I can say that the history of wine making has undergone from a lot of process, trials and errors as we say. From the time it was discovered thousands of years ago.And I think we should know the history of the wine not just for us to drink . And I learned that wine is already existed for how many years ago.
and also Certainly wine, as a natural phase of grape spoilage, was "discovered" by accident, unlike beer and bread, which are human inventions/made........

5 comments:

  1. Now I know that the history of wine is almost as old as mankind, it is indeed interesting how WINE became popular from its first accidental discovery and up to the present. I also learned that, Like any other products, wine was also being exported from other countries and those who received it soon develop their own vineyards. As a conclusion, I can say that the history of mankind and the history of WINES have in common for both of them changes as it AGES..

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  2. I learned that the quality of the grapes determines the quality of the wine more than any other factor. In processing in the making of red wine is secondary fermentation. This is a bacterial fermentation which converts malic acid to lactic acid and adjustments made prior to filtration and bottling.

    The time from harvest to drinking can vary from a few months for Beaujolais nouveau wines to over twenty years for top wines. However, only about 10% of all red and 5% of white wine will taste better after five years than it will after just one year.A final dose of sulfite is added to help preserve the wine and prevent unwanted fermentation in the bottle then are traditionally sealed with a cork.

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