0:00

The following is an encore presentation of

0:02

Everything Everywhere Daily. For

0:08

thousands of years, wine has been one of the most

0:10

important beverages in the world. It's been

0:12

consumed by common folk and by emperors, and

0:14

it can be made in a surprisingly wide

0:16

variety of geographies. It can

0:18

be made by backyard vinters as well as

0:21

by mega-corporations. It's so

0:23

important that it plays a central role in

0:25

some religions, yet it's completely banned by others.

0:28

Learn more about the history of wine and

0:30

wine making, and how it changed over the

0:32

centuries on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

0:47

This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. Father's

0:50

Day is right around the corner, and there's

0:53

no better gift for a dad who loves

0:55

barbecues and cookouts than a year of high

0:57

quality meat, chicken, and seafood from ButcherBox. You've

1:01

heard me talk about ButcherBox dozens of times,

1:03

and maybe you've been thinking about signing up,

1:05

but you just haven't taken the final step.

1:08

Well, now ButcherBox is offering one of their

1:10

best deals for a limited time only. If

1:13

you act before June 18th, you

1:15

can get $20 off your first three

1:18

orders for a total of $60,

1:20

and included with that will be

1:22

your choice of free chicken thighs,

1:25

top sirloin, or salmon in every

1:27

single box for an entire year.

1:30

So celebrate Father's Day by

1:33

going to butcherbox.com/daily, and use

1:35

code DAILY60 at checkout,

1:38

and enjoy your choice of bone-in chicken

1:40

thighs, top sirloins, or salmon in every

1:42

box for a year. Plus use code

1:44

DAILY60 to get an additional $20 off

1:47

your first three orders. Again,

1:50

that's butcherbox.com/daily, and use

1:53

code DAILY60. On

2:00

Cast you clearly are someone who likes to

2:02

learn every day. And if you want to

2:04

add a little more learning into your everyday

2:07

routine, check out Ted Talks daily. The

2:09

podcast the brings you a new Ted Talk

2:11

every weekday. In. Less than

2:13

fifteen minutes a day, you'll hear about some

2:15

of the big ideas shaping our world. This

2:18

includes everything from artificial intelligence to the search

2:20

for dark matter and more. Listen

2:22

to Ted Talks daily wherever you

2:25

get your patasse. Before

2:32

I get into a discussion of wine and

2:34

it's history, would probably be worthwhile to provide

2:36

a brief definition of exactly what mine is.

2:39

Today wine is considered to be an alcoholic

2:41

beverage created by the fermentation of the juice

2:43

of grapes. Technically, you can

2:46

make wine from the juice, have any

2:48

fruit. A simple search of the internet

2:50

will come up with winds made from

2:52

a wide variety of fruits including cherries,

2:54

Apple's watermelons, Paris plums, blackberries, blueberries, and

2:57

many more. Deliver historically

2:59

and still today. the vast majority

3:01

of winds come from grapes. The.

3:03

Association with grapes and winds is so

3:06

strong that absence some additional adjectives. it's

3:08

assume that a thing called wind comes

3:10

from grape juice. For the

3:13

rest of this episode, unless otherwise noted, when

3:15

I talked about wine, you can assume that

3:17

I'm talking about wine paint from grapes. The

3:20

earliest evidence of something that you could broadly

3:22

called wind comes from of Nice and isn't

3:25

usually associated with mine. And

3:28

yours no sight of Asia who in

3:30

Central Channel Nine thousand year old pottery

3:32

shards have been discovered with princes of

3:34

a race honey wine still on them.

3:37

Hawthorne Berries or a local Wilde Great may have

3:39

been used in the creation of the wine. It

3:42

isn't known where winemaking was discovered,

3:44

but in all probability it was

3:46

discovered accidentally in multiple places. Someone.

3:49

Crushed some fruit, paid some juice, and

3:51

then it absolutely cemented. In

3:53

this respect, the origins of wine or probably

3:55

similar to the origins of teas. Eventually.

3:58

People figure out how to wrap. This accident and

4:00

then began doing it on purpose. The

4:03

earliest evidence of intentional winemaking with

4:05

grapes something that most of us

4:07

would recognize as wine dates back

4:09

about seven thousand four hundred years.

4:12

It. Was found in Hawaii for ruse to

4:14

be a new with a village in Iran's

4:16

northern So gross moons. Their the

4:19

bottoms of em for a were found was

4:21

sediments of ten and and heart rate crystals

4:23

something that's only found naturally in large amounts

4:25

of grapes. The. Pottery shards

4:27

also contain a resin from the Parabens

4:30

tree which according to Pliny the elder,

4:32

was used as a preservative and wind

4:34

which indicates that wine production here was

4:37

intentional. Spilling. Beyond

4:39

trace molecules found on pottery shards,

4:41

the first evidence of a dedicated

4:43

winemaking facility was found in Armenia.

4:46

Dating back about six thousand years, the

4:48

A Reni One keep complex shows evidence

4:50

of crushing grapes and then moving the

4:52

liquid into storage containers. Would

4:54

isn't known exactly is when great

4:57

domestication first have kids. While

4:59

we know people in this region were using

5:01

grapes to make wine, we don't know when

5:03

they began cultivating grapes. Evidence of

5:05

grapes in the form of grape seeds go

5:07

back at least twelve thousand years with seeds

5:10

found in caves, but those are most probably

5:12

wilde. Regardless, Of where

5:14

and when. Great domestication to place,

5:16

winemaking and great cultivation spread rapidly

5:18

throughout the Near East and Eastern

5:20

Mediterranean. Spy. About three

5:22

thousand bc winemaking was evident in

5:25

Persia, Egypt, Greece, The Caucuses, and

5:27

many other places. Importance

5:29

of wine in these cultures can be seen in

5:31

the stories which developed around the discovery of wine.

5:33

The. Hebrew Bible attributes the creation of wine to

5:36

know why after the great flood. The. Greeks

5:38

believe what I'm making was to the humans made

5:40

a god Dionysus. In Persia, the

5:42

legend holds that one of the wives of

5:44

a legendary king tried to kill herself by

5:46

drinking the remains of spoiled grapes marked as

5:48

poison. Instead of dying, she quite enjoyed

5:51

it and shared her discovery with the king.

5:54

The Phoenicians traded in wine across their

5:56

extensive trade network in the Mediterranean. The.

5:58

greeks greatly advances of winemaking,

6:00

including developing methods of wine production

6:03

preservation. But the

6:05

ancient culture which did the most to

6:07

advance winemaking and wine growing were undoubtedly

6:09

the Romans. Their empire

6:11

encompassed all of the area around the Mediterranean

6:13

Sea, which is one of the best grape

6:15

growing regions in the world. They

6:17

were able to export not just wine, but

6:20

wine growing knowledge all over their empire. And

6:22

they were also able to adopt best

6:24

practices from all the people they conquered,

6:26

including the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. Wine

6:29

in Rome was central to their civilization. Wine

6:32

was considered a democratic drink that was

6:34

consumed by everyone from slaves to emperors.

6:37

The quality of the wine they drank may

6:39

have been different, but everyone drank wine every

6:41

day save for very young children. The

6:44

average amount of wine consumed by a person

6:46

in the Roman Empire was estimated to be

6:48

about half a liter per person per day,

6:51

or about two-thirds of a modern bottle of

6:53

wine. Roman consumption of

6:55

wine was very different from how people drink

6:58

wine today. In fact, even

7:00

the most devoted wine enthusiasts would find Roman

7:02

wine traditions to be very odd. For

7:05

starters, they almost never drank straight

7:07

undiluted wine like you would today.

7:09

They would drink their wine diluted with water,

7:11

which lowered the alcohol content and also made

7:14

the wine go further. Wine

7:16

was usually diluted at a ratio of one to one.

7:19

Sometimes seawater was used to give it a

7:21

salty taste. They would also often add

7:23

flavoring to their wines in the form of herbs

7:25

and spices. Lavender and thyme

7:27

were popular additions to wine, and sometimes

7:29

wines were put inside smokehouses to give

7:31

them a smoky flavor and to accelerate

7:33

the aging process. Honey

7:36

was also a popular additive to give wines a

7:38

sweet flavor. And foorai were

7:40

often lined with resins to give the wine a

7:42

particular flavor as well. One

7:44

variety of wine called retzina was produced that way

7:46

over 2,000 years ago, and it's

7:48

still produced that way today in Greece. The

7:52

most prized wines in Rome were sweet

7:54

white wines. A lower quality

7:56

of wine was called posca. Posca

7:58

was a sour wine that had then quite yet

8:00

turned to vinegar. It was the wine

8:02

that was served to Roman soldiers because of its

8:04

low cost and low alcohol content. The

8:07

lowest quality wine was called Laura.

8:10

This was nothing more than water soaked in

8:12

already pressed grape skins and then pressed again.

8:15

Laura was reserved for slaves and the poorest of

8:17

the poor. When the

8:20

Roman Empire eventually fell, wine production and

8:22

wine consension didn't fall with it. The

8:25

late Roman Empire saw the rise of Christianity. In

8:27

Christianity, Jesus performed a miracle, turning water

8:29

into wine and drank wine with his

8:31

apostles at the Last Supper. Wine

8:34

was used in Christian religious ceremonies which ensured

8:36

that even in regions that didn't grow wine,

8:38

at least some wine would be imported. The

8:41

rise of Islam and its prohibition on the

8:43

consumption of alcohol saw a decrease in wine

8:45

cultivation in the Levant and other areas under

8:48

Muslim control. However, it never

8:50

entirely disappeared as many people continued to

8:52

drink wine in private and limited production

8:54

was allowed. During the golden

8:56

age of Islam from the 8th to the

8:59

13th century, scholars and alchemists did experiment with

9:01

wine and wine distillation as both a medicine

9:03

and for use in perfumes. In

9:06

the Middle Ages, wine continued to be the primary

9:08

beverage for people from all walks of life in

9:10

Southern Europe. In Northern Europe, people tended

9:12

to consume beer and ale. Grape

9:15

varietals greatly expanded during this period, allowing

9:17

for the creation of different types of

9:19

wine from different tasting grapes. Many

9:21

vineyards during this period were operated by

9:23

monasteries that made both sacramental wine and

9:26

wine for general consumption. The

9:28

15th century saw the first appellation system

9:30

developed in Portugal. Appellation refers

9:33

to the type of grapes and the region grapes

9:35

are grown in to define a type of wine.

9:38

Appellation still exists today in the form of

9:40

strict legal rules for what can be called

9:42

certain types of wine, such as Bordeaux, Riesling,

9:45

or Champagne. The

9:47

biggest thing to happen to wine in the

9:49

15th and 16th centuries was the attempt to

9:51

bring viticulture and winemaking to lands outside of

9:53

the Old World. When the

9:55

Spanish arrived in Mexico, they assumed that it would

9:57

make for excellent wine brewing, and it wasn't

10:00

an unreasonable assumption. In

10:02

certain places, the climate was warm and not too

10:04

dissimilar from what could be found around the Mediterranean.

10:07

However, they were never able to make the same

10:09

quality of wines as they could in Europe. The

10:12

problem with the quality of wines in places

10:14

like Mexico and Colombia was that European grapes

10:16

simply didn't adapt well. There were

10:19

diseases and pests that didn't exist in

10:21

Europe, plus the climate wasn't exactly the

10:23

same. There were, however,

10:25

some areas where European grapes did do well.

10:28

In particular, Argentina, Chile, and

10:30

Peru. These regions could

10:32

produce enough wine that Spanish colonists who lived

10:34

there didn't have to import wine from Spain.

10:37

Today, Peru isn't known as a major wine-producing

10:39

region. Peruvian wine production began to

10:42

decline after a major earthquake in 1687 destroyed

10:45

much of the wine-producing infrastructure. And

10:47

when the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, they

10:50

were forced to sell their vineyards in Peru and

10:52

the expertise in wine growing that went with them.

10:55

Grape wines were brought to South Africa with the founding of

10:57

Cape Town in 1659. Wine

11:00

quality in South Africa was considered to be much

11:02

higher than that of the Americas for decades. By

11:05

the late 18th century, wine from the Constantia

11:07

region outside of Cape Town became a favorite

11:10

of European royalty. Wine

11:12

cuttings from South Africa were brought to Australia with

11:14

the first fleet that arrived in 1788. These

11:18

first wines failed, but by 1820, a

11:20

fledgling wine industry had already developed in

11:22

Australia. The first vineyard in New

11:24

Zealand was established in 1836 by

11:27

James Busby, who had also helped establish

11:29

wine regions in Australia. Wine

11:32

in the United States was considered a

11:34

failed experiment for decades. Despite

11:36

many attempts by people, nobody was able

11:38

to produce a quality wine. It

11:40

wasn't until the settlement of California in the 19th

11:43

century that a region was found that was suitable

11:45

for wine production. European grapes were

11:47

able to grow there and produce wines that couldn't

11:49

be made elsewhere in the United States. The

11:52

late 19th century saw a crisis in

11:54

European wine production. The Phylloxera

11:57

Laos infected vineyards all over Europe and almost

11:59

might be a problem. microscopic insect that's native

12:01

to Eastern North America. Phylloxera

12:03

attacks the roots of grape vines

12:05

and European vines were particularly susceptible.

12:08

For a while it looked like the entire European

12:11

wine industry would be destroyed. The

12:13

eventual solution was to graft European vines

12:15

onto the roots of native grape plants

12:17

from the Americas. A

12:19

side effect of the Phylloxera outbreak was the development

12:21

of the modern wine industry in Europe. Some

12:24

native varietals were lost, some vineyards were

12:26

repurposed, and some wine regions such as

12:28

Champagne and Bordeaux developed mixtures of wine

12:30

that still define their wine regions today.

12:34

A major development in wine production took place after

12:36

the Second World War. The

12:38

fermentation process in wine requires yeast

12:40

and natural yeast were always used

12:42

and this resulted in very uneven

12:44

quality. In the 50s

12:46

and 60s starter yeast began to be used in

12:48

wine production around the world. This resulted

12:51

in more consistent quality even at higher

12:53

rates of production. Despite

12:55

the Phylloxera outbreak and the growth of wine producing

12:57

regions in the New World, it

12:59

was generally considered that European wines known

13:01

as Old World wines were superior. However,

13:04

in 1976 at an

13:06

event known as the Judgment of Paris, on which I've

13:08

done a previous episode, a panel of

13:10

wine experts gave California wines top prize in

13:13

a blind tasting of both white and red

13:15

wines. The Judgment of Paris opened

13:17

the eyes of wine enthusiasts around the world

13:19

to the quality not only of wines from

13:21

California, but from other New World wine growing

13:23

countries as well. Today

13:26

wine is big business. The

13:28

worldwide wine industry is estimated to be over $260

13:30

billion annually. The

13:34

largest wine producing countries in the world are still

13:36

areas where the Romans once grew wine, Italy,

13:38

France and Spain. Following

13:40

them are the new worldwide growing

13:42

countries of the United States, Australia,

13:44

Chile, Argentina and South Africa. There

13:48

are thousands of different wine varietals grown in

13:50

the world today, the vast majority of which

13:52

have very small plantings. Most

13:54

wine produced and consumed in the world only

13:56

represents one or two dozen different types of

13:58

grapes. The top

14:00

wine grape varietals in the

14:02

world by acreage are Cabernet

14:04

Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo, Chardonnay, Syrah,

14:06

Grenache, and Sevignon Blanc. The

14:10

future for wine doesn't look that radically different

14:12

from its past. It isn't the sort of

14:14

thing that changes very much or for which

14:16

there is much demand for change. The

14:18

biggest changes are in new wine-producing regions such as

14:20

China, Turkey, and India, as well

14:22

as the development in storage such as the

14:25

move to artificial corks, twist-off caps, and, uh,

14:28

wine in a box. Wine

14:30

and the wine industry are one of the few things which

14:33

have remained constant over the span of millennia. While

14:35

the consumption and production of wine has changed,

14:37

it remains an important part in the lives

14:40

of millions of people. The

14:45

executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is

14:47

Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji

14:49

Long and Cameron Kiever. I

14:51

want to give a big shout out to everyone

14:53

who supports the show over on Patreon, including the

14:56

show's producers. Your support helps me

14:58

put out a show every single day. And

15:01

also, Patreon is currently the only place where

15:03

Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the

15:05

top tier of supporters. If

15:08

you'd like to talk to other listeners of the

15:10

show and members of the Completionist Club, you

15:12

can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or

15:14

Discord server. Links to everything

15:16

are in the show notes.