Sleepy History - Wine

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Starting point is 00:01:27 A simple glass of wine with dinner. A fun weekend of wine tasting at a vineyard. A dusty old cellar filled with bottles worth thousands. of dollars. Wine has made its way into nearly every part of society and life. It spans the every day to the most elite, the casual, and the cultured. But how did this drink, made of fermented grapes, gain the status and popularity it enjoys today? How were the first wines made? And how did Clippings travel from continent to continent, helping to establish industries from Australia to South Africa and beyond.

Starting point is 00:02:13 We'll delve into these questions and more tonight. So just relax and let your mind drift as we explore the sleepy history of wine. Benjamin Franklin once said, wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance. While not everyone nowadays may agree on the benefits of wine, one thing that can be said for certain is that wine has been a part of human life for a very long time. When it comes to recounting a history, some topics,

Starting point is 00:03:12 are simpler than others. Wine is quite an ambitious subject. We're going to walk you through our version of the history of wine. Now, it must be said up front that this is a vast and sprawling story. It would be impossible for us to recognize every era, every region, and every interesting development on such a long and far-ranging trick. Rather than putting this story forth as a comprehensive history, we ask you to view it as a primer. We have attempted to include some of the most notable times and places, while acknowledging that no story could ever possibly encompass them all. With that said, Although there's no way to know for sure when humans first purposely made wine,

Starting point is 00:04:23 it seems highly likely that nature had been doing it independently for thousands of years. This may sound like a bold claim, but the truth is that at its most basic level, wine making is an entirely natural process. First, we should establish that, while wine can be made from lots of different fruits, the most commonly accepted type is made with grapes. Experts will point out that wine making probably dates back to the very earliest grapes that grew on earth. The plant family that the Great belongs to has produced fossils and rocks dating back to about 50 million years ago. Fermentation, which produces wine, is a natural process.

Starting point is 00:05:34 Therefore, the earliest wine was probably an accidental affair. Fruit would have fallen from the vine and fermented on its own. even though nobody was there to find it. Grapes would have undergone a metabolic process in which they converted sugar into alcohol. Then pretty quickly, the liquid would have turned to vinegar. In short, people did not need to invent wine or figure out how to make it. Nature took care of that for us. So when did the first people?

Starting point is 00:06:19 discover the products of fermented grapes? Evidence points to a possible origin of about 6,000 BCE. Residue in a clay jar found in the eastern European country of Georgia suggests it contained wine. Similar jars from a site in Iran's northern Sagros Mountains indicates the same use. In his documentary, the most serious history of wine, Jim Hodgson theorizes that these Neolithic wines may have been made when someone sealed up grape juice in a jar and accidentally made a wine out of it. On the other hand, religious literature puts forth various competing origin stories

Starting point is 00:07:19 with a lot more drama involved. For example, tales about its creation appear in the Bible, the epic of Gilgamesh, and the Persian story of Jamshed. While wine certainly could have evolved in multiple places at once, the area geographers now call Transcaucasia was a probable hotbed of activity. This region would have included modern-day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, northern Iran, and eastern Turkey. In his book, Inventing wine, expert Paul Lukatch clarifies that wine was not the first

Starting point is 00:08:10 alcoholic beverage people produced. He points, for example, to an older beverage made by people in the Hanan province of China, consisting of honey, fruit juice, and rice beer. Indeed, people in many locations were using all sorts of ingredients to produce similar beverages by the time wine came on the scene. However, the drink we now identify as wine appeared in the Transcaucasian region between 8,000 and 4,000 BCE. Once it had begun, people's interest in wine could not. be stopped. Wine making seems to have caught on in other cultures, reaching south to Mesopotamia,

Starting point is 00:09:09 Egypt and the Levant, west to Anatolia, and east to Central Asia, for starters. Greece would eventually become very important in the development of viticulture and wine consumption in general. There is evidence that wine was already being made there during the Bronze Age and that it was very much a part of Greek life by the time the Benoan culture arose around 3,100 BCE. It's even possible that the Greeks are responsible for introducing wine to the Egyptians via trade, shipping them in widely used ceramic containers called amphoras. The Greeks also seemed to have introduced their V. V. V. V. Vinavera wine to colonies in modern day Italy, Spain, and France. Because it seemed to be a wondrous natural gift, wine was often used for special purposes. As one example, evidence shows that in 3,000 B.C.E,

Starting point is 00:10:33 Egyptians were using wine ceremonially at burials, and wine-making scenes can now be found on tomb walls of that era. In ancient Israel, consumption of wine was also prominent both as a dietary and religious staple. However, the ancient Greeks really allowed wine to become a daily indulgence. grapes grew easily in Greece. So by the 4th century BCE, they were a staple in everyday life. As Lukach put it, quote, wine was still a blessing from heaven, only now the blessing had been bestowed much more broadly.

Starting point is 00:11:29 With the growth of cities, commercialism also flourished, making wine a business. Experts are quick to point out that the beverage being consumed by these ancient people was technically wine, but it would not be recognizable to enthusiasts today. Just sticking the fermented liquid into a clay jar did not halt its natural processes. Therefore, the wines of the era quickly turned to vinegar, making them drinkable for only a brief, time. Even before that, the product would have been very thick and even chunky. An early wine press discovered in Crete dates somewhere between 1600 and 1400 BCE. It consisted of a simple stone basin

Starting point is 00:12:34 where people presumably stomped the grapes, letting the juice go down a drain. It's easy to imagine this would have produced a pretty inconsistent product. Somewhere along the way, people figured out that they could extend the life of their wine by adding tree resin, which had antibacterial properties. While it certainly lengthened the shelf life of the wine, it also would have given the drink a sharp tang. In short, the wine probably tasted a lot more like tree sap than it did like grapes. Nonetheless, according to Lou Catch's book, that practice lasted literally for millennia. Persisting across cultures all the way to the Romans, nobody in all that time found a better solution.

Starting point is 00:13:39 At the outset of the common era, prolific writer Pliny the elder noted, It is the peculiarity of wine among liquids to go moldy or else to turn into vinegar. Although the Romans tried additives such as gypsum, lead, lime, lye ash, marble, dust, and myrrh, every wine would eventually go sour. This was an ongoing problem that was tough to resolve. Despite the sharp taste, wine consumption only increased during the era of the Romans. As hard as this is for us to imagine, clean, fresh water was very scarce. Adding wine to water and even small quantities made it safer to drink, as it neutralized impurities.

Starting point is 00:14:51 Plutarch wrote that adding water in a ratio of two or three, three, to one portion of wine, would relieve the harsh and irregular motions of the soul and secure deep peace for it. In plain language, it prevented illnesses. For this, people were more than willing to suffer through the taste of treasap. As the common era grew nearer, an important shift occurred. Until that point, the making of wine had been viewed as a largely universal natural process. In short, wine was the gift of the gods or the gift of the earth. It was not a human-made product.

Starting point is 00:15:49 And throughout this time, there had been little interest in distinguishing one wine from another. Of note, the first recorded minted, of a certain wine coming from a particular area was in Greece. In the 7th century BCE, the poet Elkman praised a wine called Fendiz, from the western foothills of Mount Taitos in Messinia as being flowery scented. That comment was a hint of what was to come. The Romans began favoring wines of some regions over others. One of the most popular wines among the Romans, which was made from dried grapes and was incredibly thick, sweet and potent, was a product called Philarnian.

Starting point is 00:16:55 We don't know exactly how Felerinian tasted, but Pliny the elder said admiringly of this drink, that it was the only wine that took a light when flame was applied to it. Among the Philarnians, the most sought after was the Opemian vintage of 121 BCE. No other wine has a higher rank, plenty gushed. Whether or not modern wine drinkers would agree, the most important thing to notice about this worship of the Opemian vintage is that it marks a moment in time when vintages and varietals began to matter. Whether or not the notice was warranted, this particular batch of Valerian set the stage for the next phase of the history of wine. In other words, views on wine were evolving to a state where the ventnor made choices that affected his product, and those were important.

Starting point is 00:18:10 Now, very popular indeed, all this alcohol eventually. resulted in a rise of excessive drunkenness. At some point, the average Roman was consuming roughly a bottle of wine per day. In 92 CE, to counteract this, the emperor Domitian passed the first wine laws on record, banning the planting of new vineyards and decreeing that many should be torn up. In the provinces, half of the vineyards were to be sacrificed and turned over to the production of grain. However, the wine laws were reportedly widely ignored, and the love affair of the Romans with wine continued. They took viticulture everywhere they went, establishing what are now the major wine-producing areas in Western Europe.

Starting point is 00:19:17 As Hodgson so humorously put it in his documentary, wine was to the Romans what cargo shorts are to Americans. Along the way, they also innovated, learning to age and transport their wine in barrels rather than clay containers, and replacing ceramic amphoras with glass bottles. As a testament to the potential hardiness of such a bottle, A glass urn was unearthed in Carmona, Spain in 2019, that is thought to still contain liquid wine.

Starting point is 00:20:02 Eventually, of course, the Roman Empire declined and with it, the golden age of wine it had enjoyed. However, even as the Romans made their exit, a Catholic church continued making wine for its own use. Indeed, as Lukach points out in his book, it does seem that the clerical enthusiasm for wine went beyond producing just what was needed for religious purposes. According to his research, clerics of the time expanded and developed winemaking, bringing it to areas of Europe that had not previously been making much wine. This resulted in the expansion of winemaking to places like northern France, Germany, and even England. Vineyards also expanded to Eastern Europe and to the south in North Africa and Palestine.

Starting point is 00:21:18 Wine became an important part of secular culture, spreading wherever Christianity went. By the late 8th century, Lukatch quotes historian Pierre Richet as saying that the period was one obsessed with wine. But once again, it's important to point out that wine still tasted pretty bad. The advent of barrels had certainly added new dimensions to winemaking, thanks to their exposure to oxygen,

Starting point is 00:21:56 as well as the complex interaction between the barrel and the wine. However, these containers also came with some disadvantages. Oxygen exposure was a double-edged sword. Even if it was fine when it was placed in its barrel, a wine would have spoiled more quickly than it did in an urn, tasting sour upon delivery. Furthermore, whereas clay amphora's had provided a good seal from other exterior elements, the barrels did not.

Starting point is 00:22:39 In other words, it wasn't just oxygen that got inside. Because of that, they were not sterile, reducing their shelf life. Wine would have been consumed as quickly as possible, which was not optimal for taste. Within Europe, widespread consumption of wine was most common in the southern countries, where grapes were plentiful. In the north and east, wine was imported, but mainly for the nobility and the members of the church. Worse yet, the poorest people would have drunk wine that had gone straight from fermentation and to animal hides rather than bottles.

Starting point is 00:23:30 This not only further compromised the taste, but also introduced bacteria and all sorts of other undesirable elements that were not good for health. Meanwhile, wine drinking flourished in sections of some Eastern cultures, such as the Christian and Jewish communities there. It was less common in regions that were under Muslim control due to, to prohibitions on everyday alcohol consumption. However, even in Muslim medieval culture, the idea of wine persisted. It was mentioned in literature and consumed by discrete privileged groups. In a discussion of wine, it's reasonable to think of history in terms of the old and the new world. So while Columbus was certainly a controversial figure,

Starting point is 00:24:42 it's fair to say that his voyages did prompt the spread of winemaking from Europe to the Americas. Once again, the church proved to be a key factor. Spanish conquistadors brought vines to Mexico, ostensibly to provide supplies for the Holy Eucharist. Winemaking then spread further via Spanish missionaries, reaching Chile and Argentina during the 16th century. At this point, Mexico had become the biggest wine producer. It was so prolific that the King of Spain issued a ban on Mexican winemaking to keep it from damaging business in Spain. Meanwhile, as wine-making spread across the globe, there was a new and beneficial trend to helping increase the quality of the product.

Starting point is 00:25:51 The containers improved. As glass-making practices evolved, the art of glass-blowing allowed artisans to create bottles of just about any shape. Until this time, wine had been stored in glass that was more onion-shaped or pot-bellied in form. Further, the glass containers were sealed with oiled rags or glass stoppers that could easily cause breakage when they were removed. Now, with the possibility of creating a small neck, glass blowers could make a bottle that took a cork. Not only did corks solve the problem of stopper breakage, but they created a better watertight seal and prevented oxidation. This allowed the wine to age better. Further, these bottles were excellent for laying down wine on its side for horizontal transport and storage. The 17th century offers another particularly interesting.

Starting point is 00:27:14 moment in the evolution of the wine business. It was then that a French lord named Arnaudet-Pontac began to leverage the popularity of one of the wines from his Burgundy vineyard. The wine in question became a favorite of King Charles II, leading to Pontac to market it specifically to the well-do English. He named this claret after his estate. which was called O'Briand. Notes about this wine from the cellar keeper for the king mentioned the wine by name. Those, in combination with a similar mention,

Starting point is 00:28:05 in the diary of the famous Samuel Pepys, provide the first historical notes for a claret that is actually named after its vineyard. The price of the bottle went up with the popularity of the wine, making Depondack, arguably one of the first people to invent wine marketing. Today, bottles of Obrillon can average nearly $700 online. By the 18th century, vines were being established in Baja, California. Meanwhile, across oceans, grape vines were also being exported to Cape Province.

Starting point is 00:28:55 one of the four original provinces in what is now South Africa. They next made their way to New Zealand and Australia, where the first cuttings arrived from the Cape of Good Hope in 1788. The Australian efforts didn't bear fruit immediately, but by the 19th century, the first vineyards had successfully been established down under. Although the South African market was briefly the largest exporter of wine to Europe that century, it really took many years for these newer areas to get into the global wine business. For a time, they mainly produced wines for more local consumption or other limited markets.

Starting point is 00:29:59 They would come into their own, however, a course. couple of centuries later. Something else, of note, quietly happened during the 18th century. Far away from the new world in Hungary, Ventnorce created the first wine classification system. They rated vineyards on three factors, soil, sun exposure, and susceptibility to blight. This, in essence, created a tiered system of first, second, and third-class wines. Like the designation of the Opemian vintage during the time of the Romans, it was an important step in winemaking, recognizing that many choices and factors made a difference in the quality of each wine.

Starting point is 00:31:01 Historically speaking, the prevalence of New World winemaking became both a blessing and a curse to European bintners in the 19th century. Apparently enthusiastic English botanists imported a pest called the loxera, bringing it over to England on cuttings from American vines. Although the vines on American shores were already resistant to the insect, the vines on the other side of the Atlantic were not. Phloxera destroyed the vineyards in England and then was subsequently transferred to the mainland, devastating the European winemaking industry. The first sign of the blight appeared in the southern Rhone region,

Starting point is 00:32:00 of France. It was not long before the destruction spread across the continent. Drier and sandier areas fared somewhat better than others. Notably, the reasling grapes in the Mosul region stood up to the crisis well due to the slate present in the soil. Similarly, resistant were the vines on the slopes of Sicily's volcano, Mount Etna. Today, a few tiny pockets of surviving vines protect the legacy of some old-world varietals. However, experts estimate that somewhere between two-thirds and nine-tenths of Europe's vineyards were destroyed by the tiny invader. Reportedly, some French winemakers tried remedies, such as burying toads under the vines, to draw the poison,

Starting point is 00:33:06 in a way. However, the blight was eventually halted only by scientific research. It turns out that the top of the vine, not the root, determines how a grape will evolve. Following that principle, scientists were able to graph existing old world varietals onto roots from American grape vines and still produce their customary grape. Another way of approaching the problem was by breeding new vines via hybridization. This was an imperfect solution as the new vines were not completely resistant to the pest, and they had the added drawback that their grapes were not quite the same. For purists of the old world varietals,

Starting point is 00:34:10 they continued to be considered inferior. While the phyloxeroblite was occupying Europe, wine was having ups and downs in the United States. By 1850, wine was being produced all over the country, but Americans were still drinking other beverages such as whiskey, beer, and hard cider far more frequently. One reason is that these other drinks were simply cheaper to produce. When people in the U.S. did drink wine, it was generally imported.

Starting point is 00:34:57 The 1840 census shows that only 3% of the wine consumed that year in the United States was American-made. Luckily for wine lovers, the gold rush, provided a catalyst for the industry in 1849. Wine expert Jim Lapsley explained the trend in a 2017 interview with PBS on American Experience. He said that miners loved alcoholic beverages, including wine. Settlers soon discovered that the climate in California was excellent for vineyards. and that grapes there suffered less from the problems they encountered on the humid East Coast, such as mold and mildew.

Starting point is 00:36:00 Furthermore, these early grape growers were successful in planting the more popular European varietals that the drinking public appeared to want. At first, the growth in the popularity of wine was limited to the West Coast, But in 1875, a delegation from the wine growers was able to get a tax on foreign wines increased. This resulted in New York wine cellars importing more California wines, and they gained a large share of the affordable portion of the market. At the same time, wine-loving European immigrants were increasing demand. for wine in general. By the time Prohibition was looming, 90% of the steadily growing amount of

Starting point is 00:37:03 wine consumed in the U.S. was from California. When Prohibition outlawed the commercial production and sale of alcohol in 1919, wine found a surprising loophole, although it was illegal to make wine as a business or to sell it to anyone, it was not illegal to let people buy your grapes and make their own wine at home. Vineyards got through this period by doing just that. According to Lapsley, grape sales tripled year over year and California Vineyard Acridge doubled because the focus was on producing grapes that could survive long trips to the East Coast, the wine producers focused on types that could produce tough-skinned grapes with lots of color. These may not have produced the ideal wine, but they were the right grape for the purpose. Unfortunately, this trend ended

Starting point is 00:38:22 in setbacks to winemaking at the end of prohibition in 1933. First, the types of grapes dominating the California market were no longer the ones that made high-quality wines. Second, many of the actual winemaking capabilities of California had eroded. Farmers kept growing grapes, but much of their crop was shipped out of state, and what remained was used to make a lot of heavy fortified wine. This pattern continued for decades. But hope was on the horizon. The reasons behind the eventual wine boom that finally began in the 1960s are debatable.

Starting point is 00:39:19 Some experts credit more travelers to and from Europe. Others cite the pallets of soldiers returning from World War II. But Jim Lapsley suggests that, California wine just got better. Technological improvements such as steel barrel fermentation boosted quality and baby boomers started drinking these improved wines, starting with whites such as chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. In 1964, the screw cap top became available on many bottles of wine,

Starting point is 00:40:03 Although it may not have had the same perception of hot tea quality that the cork did, the screw top provided a contaminant-free seal and was easy to open. Today, a large percentage of the new world wines are using screw-cap tops. Then, 1976 marked a huge turning point for American wine. At a blind taste test, now known as the Judgment of Paris, California wines shocked the world by taking home some of the top prizes. In 1973 Chardonnay from Chateau Montalena, won top honors among the whites as one of the three American wines in the top five

Starting point is 00:41:03 among the red selections, A 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag's Leap wine cellars took first place, topping in 1970 Chateau-Muton-Rothschild from Bordeaux. From a marketing perspective, the judgment of Paris showed the world that American wines could hold their own. Nonetheless, the 1980s presented another downturn, as the industry weathered a period of declining American wine consumption, this was probably due to a mixture of factors.

Starting point is 00:41:51 Culturally, there was a movement against drugs and alcohol in general, and the baby boomers were now occupied with raising families. They were just drinking less wine in general. Unexpectedly, that decline was, reversed again in 1991. That was when an American news program called 60 Minutes suggested that the French lifestyle, which included wine, was responsible for better heart health. While it's impossible to directly credit the 60 Minutes report with the ensuing wine boom, Jim Lapsley points out the correlation, as well as its relevance to heart health or aging baby boomers.

Starting point is 00:42:48 Whatever the case, during the 1990s, wine consumption doubled. Now in the 21st century, wines are being produced in more places than ever, and continuing to find palettes that appreciate their wide range of personalities. A 2024 report on the current state of wine suggests that Europe is still extremely popular, indicating an ongoing love of old world varietals. But there is also enthusiasm for newer markets, such as Argentina, Chile, and even the ancient classic Greece. Australia is one of the leading wine producers in the world as well. It exports roughly 800 million liters of the 1.3 billion it produces annually.

Starting point is 00:43:58 There are wine producers in every one of its states, and the industry contributes significantly to the economy through exports, tourism, employment, and in-country sales. Recent data shows a cooling of the California wine market, driven by factors such as, the advanced age of baby boomers and the preferences of the younger generations which currently skew to other beverages but statistics also show that consumption of the higher quality california wines still hold steady if the ups and downs of the 20th century have shown us anything it's that trends will continue to change but wine drinking is probably forever. After all, based on human history, it doesn't look like wine is going away anytime soon. If one of the world's oldest beverages could survive millennia of tree sap,

Starting point is 00:45:16 spoilage, and poor storage, today's challenges shouldn't be cause for concern. Galileo once famously said, wine is sunlight held together by water. As one of nature's earliest and most effortless gifts, the fermentation of the grape isn't quite that simple. But with the skill of today's evolved winemakers and the adventurous spirit of wine's biggest bands, it might finally feel like Galileo was right.

Sleepy History - Wine

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