Wine

“Ask not what wine has done for you, but rather what you’re willing to do for wine.”

Anonymous

 

“The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars.”

Benjamin Franklin

Do you have a library in your house? Well, there are those that have two libraries. One is for books like the average person, and the other library is for wine.

Olive: Tilly, do you know what a wine library is? Don’t look it up like I did.

Tilly: I do. But unable to afford to acquire any of the stocks in any of them! Mind you, we went to a restaurant in Maidenhead a number of years ago, and they had a wine on the list for £200 and plenty. I suggested ordering it and saying it was corked …

So, just how old is wine? According to some food historians, it is 7400 to 7000 years old. It was found in a pottery jar at the Neolithic site of Haiji Firuz, in the northern Zagros Mountains, located in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Now there is something to think about. A great place to store it, right Tilly?

Tilly: Hmm …my dip into history shared this: 6000 BCE (Georgia): Residue on ancient pottery from Neolithic villages like Gadachrili Gora shows the earliest intentional fermentation of grapes.4100 BCE (Armenia): The Areni-1 winery—the world’s oldest known fully-equipped winemaking facility—was established with fermentation vats, presses, and storage jars.5000 BCE (Iran): Early wine jars with chemical signatures of grape resin were used in the Zagros Mountains. (And now Iran is mostly teetotal!)

How It Was Discovered: Wild Grapes: Early humans gathered wild Vitis vinifera grapes, abundant in the Caucasus region.Natural Yeast: Yeasts naturally occurring grape skins caused the fruit to ferment when left in storage containers.Accidental Brewing: Juice left in vessels naturally turned into an early form of wine, leading people to intentionally recreate the process.

The spread of the culture of wine in the Mediterranean is due to the Phoenicians, who took it to the Greeks and onward to those ancient Romans.

Tilly: Great marketers, or what?

The ancient Romans discovered that burning sulfur candles inside the empty wine vessels kept them fresh and free from a vinegar smell. The antioxidant effects of the sulfur dioxide is still used today as a wine preservative.

For those of you who served in the military, the Roman soldiers were encouraged to drink 2-3 liters of wine a day for good health.

Tilly: Botheration. No jobs like that these days … shame … Water has killed more people than wine. Remember the Flood?

Cleopatra’s favorite wine was the ancient Greek wine Muscat of Alexandria, which, by the way, is still made today.

Olive: Tilly, you remember her, don’t you?

Tilly: She was a few years ahead of me in school … and as far as I am concerned, the only use for muscat is in cooking and desserts.

Roman soldiers traveling northward through Germany began growing and producing wine in the Rheingau area of Germany, where it is still made today.

Tilly: They’d have to produce wine there to ensure the 2-3 litres per soldier per day. And would a wine waiter in MacDonalds be a Burger-meister?

Sealed and stored in stoneware jugs and re-fermented, led to the French taking control and making sparkling wine aka Champagne. Tilly; the British, decided to make a cider drink. What happened to your ancestors?

Tilly: Booze was expensive and apples were plentiful. Currently plenty of English Champagne has won awards, beating the French. And, as Napoleon Bonaparte said,”In victory, you deserve Champagne. In defeat, you need it.” Maybe the French needed it more than the Brits?

Roman and Medieval Era: Vines were grown primarily by monasteries and nobility for basic, local table wines.The Climate Shift: A medieval warm period allowed grape growing, but cooling temperatures and the easy import of cheap French wines (especially after the English crown acquired Aquitaine) caused early English viticulture to die out by the 16th century. No Bubbly From Old Vines: The historical vineyards of medieval Britain pre-dated the invention of pressurized sparkling wine bottles by centuries and never produced Champagne.

And what have racing drivers got against Champagne?

Moving forward, to preserve the wine on long journeys by the Dutch East India Company, added fortification created Port, Madeira, Marsala, and Sherry.

Tilly: Very fond of all of them, but Port doesn’t like me, so I only cook with it. Also cook a lot with the others!

The most desired wines in the 1600s were the sweet white wines like Sauternes from Bordeaux, Riesling from Germany, and Tokaji made in Hungary.

Tilly : Yuk. Okay for ice cream and other desserts and people you don’t like. Dry wines have more secs appeal.

So what about America? Well, in 1776, Madeira was enjoyed at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

By 1857, the first commercial winery in California is in Sonoma, the “Buena Vista Winery.”

Tilly: Was ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ a best cellar?

In 1862 that infamous Frenchman Louis Pasteur discovered oxygen’s –Thank you, Louis Pasteur.

Tilly: Indeed, huge thanks to Louis Pasteur – who was not infamous, but rather a celebrated chemist, microbiologist, and pioneer of public health.

Taking it one step further, in 1964 the first bag-in-a-box was introduced; thank you, Australia. Don’t complain about boxed wines; it has been discovered it keeps the wine fresh longer. The other best deal is that there are no glass, corks, or screw tops. Just damn good wine.

Tilly: Unfortunately, the wine boxes we have experienced have not been of the better quality … also worry about the plastic and aluminium leaching to the wine. Although, maybe if consumed rapidly, it doesn’t have time!

To Glühwein (German Mulled Wine)

Serves 4

2 bottles of red wine 75 cl/ 750 ml each

4 oranges untreated

5 whole cloves

3 Cinnamon Sticks

3 star anise

75 ml (⅓ cup) rum (optional)

100 gr (½ cup) brown sugar

 

Slice 2 oranges into rounds and juice the remaining 2 oranges.

Add the red wine, orange slices, fresh orange juice, and all spices to a large pot.

Heat gently over low-medium heat. Do not let it boil! The ideal temperature is 72°C/161°F.

Anything over 78°C/172°F will evaporate the alcohol. Use a cooking thermometer (affiliate link) to monitor.

Let the wine simmer gently for at least 20-30 minutes. For even better flavor, turn off the heat and let it steep for 1-2 hours,

then reheat before serving.

Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Start with half, taste, and add more as needed. Better quality wine needs less sugar!

Stir in the rum, brandy, or amaretto (affiliate link) if using.

Remove the orange slices and spices using a fine-mesh strainer. Serve hot in mugs.

To make in a slow cooker/crock pot

Add the red wine, orange slices, fresh orange juice, and spices to your slow cooker

Once the wine is fully warmed up, switch the crock pot setting to “warm” – and enjoy this drink with your guests. Germany, thank you for this.

Tilly: In general, I find them too sweet. Love the aroma but never been able to persuade anyone to add less sugar … but great for Bonfire Night another wintry events.

In closing, here is a surprise for you. In 2013, China became the world’s largest consumer of dry red wine in the world. Gee, I wonder why.

Tilly: And brandy … I know someone who has a wineyard in France and the Chinese buyers take all the wine he produces – last count a few years ago – at £1,000 per bottle.

“Beer is made by men, wine by God.”

― Martin Luther, circa 1500s

 

Olive and Tilly