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It is little wonder that the ancient Greek god Dionysus was known as the god of wine and ecstasy. Few beverages excite as many senses as wine does. Brilliant colors, inviting aromas, complex bouquets, subtle tastes and textures— the products of the winemaker’s art —have made wine an integral part of ceremonies and social and religious rituals, enhancing well-prepared meals and cementing friendships. Today, science has also revealed the long-term health benefits of moderate wine consumption.

Introduction to Wine

The simple definition of wine—the fermented juice of grapes—does little to explain why academics in such diverse fields as biology, chemistry, microbiology, geography, horticulture, sociology, economics, and medicine have all been fascinated with the study of wine. Perhaps the interest stems from the simple fact that from the vineyard to the table, wine is the perfect blend of art and science, a study of infinite variety and nearly endless permutations.

There are many species of grapes and thousands of varieties within each species. It is the Vitis Vinifera species, however, that produces most wines. Of the 5,000 varieties of Vitis Vinifera (the name means “wine bearing”), the wine market is concerned with no more than 50. Because winemaking is so complex, however, the history of winemaking has been characterized by continual challenges for winemakers and growers alike. The History of Wine Winemaking is a natural phenomenon: grapes have sugars that wild yeasts convert to ethyl alcohol.

Today, winemakers choose varieties of grapes and the yeasts that ferment them into wines with infinite care, but the first winemakers took the gift that nature provided and slowly learned to modify and improve the process. Until the nineteenth century, the history of wine making may be viewed as the struggle against spoilage.

Wood inadvertently became an added flavor component after the Romans adopted it from the ancient Gauls of France as a standard medium for transportation and storage. Modern winemakers, however, have little excuse for making a bad wine. The art and the science of grape growing and winemaking are based on centuries of experimentation and learning about conditions that make for good wines—and sometimes great ones.

Wine and religion

Over the centuries, wine has been inextricably linked to religion. From the ancient Greeks and Romans to Jewish and Christian traditions, wine has been associated with mystical and religious experiences because of the symbolism of annual rebirth of the vine, not to mention its psychological impact.

The earliest years

The earliest traces of winemaking may date to 6000 B.C. in the Caucasus region. By 4000 B.C. winemaking had spread to Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Egypt. In fact, the Egyptians had already begun the practice of labeling wines to indicate the place of origin, the grape, the name of the winemaker, and the vintage. Written references to grapes appear in the Bible, which notes that Noah planted a vineyard after the great flood, said to have occurred about 5600 B.C. When the Phoenicians or Minoans introduced winemaking to Greece in about 2000 B.C., its sale led to the wealth on which the great Greek civilization was built.

Winemaking technology continued to develop under the Roman Empire. Winemakers began understanding wine production and the relationships between varieties and soil, climate, aging, and storing temperatures. Later, Romans introduced winemaking to the Gauls (modern-day French). Between A.D. 350 and 1200, some monastic orders, particularly the Benedictines, Carthusians, and Cistercians, preserved and improved winemaking knowledge in Europe. In the process, they cultivated vineyards dedicated to producing wine for sacramental, medicinal, and income purposes.

Trade expands winemaking

As world exploration and trade expanded in the 1400s, Europeans looked for ways to preserve wine during long trade voyages. Dutch and English traders learned to fortify French wines by adding brandy to stabilize them. The process of adding sulfur to prevent spoilage became more widespread and continues to this day, although more judiciously. Exploration and trade also introduced winemaking to the Americas, Australia, and South Africa as Europeans begin to settle in the New World.

Technology advances winemaking

In the mid-1600s, glass bottles strong enough for commercial use were developed, though they were not widely used until late in the century. By the end of the century, the use of corks became commonplace. These developments were important to better quality control and marketing of brands. During the 1700s, Dom Pérignon, cellar master at the monastery in Hautvillers at Épernay, made significant advances in the science of winemaking. He began to understand the different characteristics of varieties; the role of terroir; the cuvée, or blending of different varieties; and the role of temperature in fermentation and cellaring. In the years following the French Revolution (1789–1815), monastic orders lost their landholdings. Their vineyards were distributed to supporters of the Revolution; the Napoleonic Code of Law then granted equal inheritance rights to heirs, resulting in ever-smaller landholdings. Négociants, or merchants, took on an increasingly important role of not only distributing, but also “raising ” the wines purchased from the owners of these small vineyards. In 1851, oidium, a powdery mildew fungus, devastated many of France’s vineyards, particularly in Bordeaux. Growers learned to use sulfur and lime to combat the problem—a solution that is still used today. By 1855, wine brokers played a pivotal role in creating a list of the best wine producers for the Paris Exposition Universelle. The list ultimately became the foundation for the Classification of 1855 of Bordeaux wines, rating the best 61 wines, primarily of the Médoc region. The list, nearly unchanged, survives to this day. The problem of wine spoilage, however, continued to plague winemakers. A solution was desperately needed. In 1862, Napoleon III invited Louis Pasteur, France’s premier scientist, to tackle the problem. Pasteur soon discovered that bacteria present in wine, especially acetobacter, the organism that turns wine to vinegar, could be controlled if the bacteria were deprived of light and oxygen. He suggested several solutions: Fill wine bottles as full as possible. Use colored glass to deprive bacteria of light. Store wine bottles on their sides so that corks remain moist and swell, keeping oxygen from seeping into the bottles. Store wine in a cool environment to retard bacterial growth. Pasteur also developed a pasteurization process for wine, which would later be used primarily to treat milk.

Biological challenges

In 1863 the European wine industry faced its biggest challenge when Phylloxera Vastatrix, a microscopic pest, was accidentally introduced to vineyards in France through the importation of American vines. By 1880, Phylloxera infestations had become so widespread that the pest was known as the “Blight of Europe.” It took nearly 40 years for France and the rest of Europe to understand the life cycle of the pest and find a solution to the havoc it caused. Through the efforts of Jules-Emile Planchon and C.V. Riley of Missouri, grafting the Vitis Vinifera vines to native American vitis species, particularly Riparia and Rupestris rootstock, gave the vines resistance to the pest. Phylloxera still remains a problem, devastating California vineyards not only in the 1880s but once again in the 1990s. Of major wine producing regions, only Chile remains free of the pest. Hybridizing vitis species to combat Phylloxera proved relatively disappointing because the quality of most hybrids was inferior. Only a few hybrid varieties, notably Seyval Blanc and Vidal Blanc for whites and Chambourcin and Maréchal Foche for reds, are still grown for wines, especially in New England.

Interaction between Europe and North America resulted in another imported blight that attacked Europe’s vines. When grafting began to enjoy success, huge quantities of American rootstock were imported to Europe. With them came downy mildew, a plague that weakened the vines, reduced the crops, and killed outright 30% of France’s vines. It took four years for growers to learn that spraying the vines with copper sulfate could prevent this mold. The spray is still used today. Then, in 1920, another “blight” plagued the wine industry, this time in the United States. The Volstead Act made the production and sale of alcoholic beverages illegal. Prohibition devastated most wineries; others could produce only sacramental or medicinal wines. However, a legal loophole allowed citizens to make up to 200 gallons of wine per year for home consumption. The planting of high-yielding table grape varieties doubled grape production. When Prohibition was repealed in December of 1933, it left a legacy of second-rate wines— a legacy that would last for over 30 years.

Improved quality control

During this same period, France was focusing on improving quality in wines. The country developed the Appellation Contrôlée system. First adopted for the production of Roquefort cheese, the system delimited the name of a wine to a particular region, but it also determined which varieties were best suited to the particular environment of that region in order to achieve authenticity. Thus, the concept of terroir was born. The system recognized that not only soil, but also the complete ecosystem of an area, including climate, wind, temperature, rainfall, sunlight, and topographical features, affected a wine’s quality.

American wines improve Ernest and Julio Gallo preserved American wine consumption during the 1930s to the 1960s by producing well-made “table wine” that was readily accessible to the American table. In the 1950s fine winemaking was again recognized as feasible in California as a result of the action of a few creative vintners. James Zellerback, who replicated a Burgundian cellar down to the kind of oak used for aging, developed an impressive Chardonnay. Inspired by his success, J. Heitz and Robert Mondavi visited Europe and came away impressed with the importance of varietals. American winemakers began to plant top-quality vines.

The University of California-Davis School of Oenology became a world leader in the study of viticulture and winemaking. A blind wine tasting held in 1976 in Paris, France, resulted in French judges’ rating some American wines as superior to the best that France had to offer. Consequently, a “grape rush” occurred, especially in Napa Valley. Tax advantages inspired heavy investments in vineyards, and more than 210 wineries are now operating in the Napa Valley alone.

Europeans have made major investments in such American wineries. Beginning in 1981, certain geographic areas became identified as American Viticultural Areas (AVA) as a result of the concept and centrality of place or terroir. The Napa Wine Growers Association was able to make its appellation a critical marketing decision in the U.S. consumer’s mind. As other regions have copied Napa, there are currently approximately 140 AVAs.

In California, Phylloxera reasserted itself in vines grafted on AxR1 rootstock that offered insufficient resistance to the pest. Most California vines had to be replanted in the 1990s. This disaster allowed producers to apply recently acquired knowledge to plant more appropriate clones and realign vineyards to optimize sunlight by spacing more efficiently and more densely—all contributing to improved quality.

Despite the problems that periodically surface in viticulture, areas around the world have thrown their resources into viticulture in the recognition that great wines are made in the vineyard. New World wines have made inroads in fine wine markets, offering consumers throughout the world ever improving quality. Concurrently, there has been a major shift from consuming “table” wines to premium and super-premium wines in both the New World and the Old World.

Although consumption in the United States remains low at 2 gallons per adult versus 15 gallons per adult in France, excitement is palpable among U.S. consumers, who are discovering wines from around the world.