Uncorking History: 10 Key Moments in Wine History

Join host sommelier Erin Rosar as she takes you on a historical journey through the wine industry, revealing 10 remarkable stories that have shaped wine as we know it today. From the discovery of the oldest winery in Armenia to the introduction of screw cap closures, learn about the fascinating milestones that have influenced wine production and culture. Grab a glass and listen in.

•  Oldest Winery
•  Roman Wine Travels
•  1855 - Bordeaux
•  A Dangerous Bug in the Ground - Phylloxera
•  Cheers to Louis Pasture
•  Prohibition
•  The Paris Tasting - California Wine Makes the Global Stage
•  Refrigeration
•  The Point System
•  Screw Cap Closures

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Transcript

Erin: 0:00

If you love wine stories and history, then today's episode is for you. I'm going to be taking you on a fascinating journey through the pages of history from mainstream wineries to Roman innovations to modern advancements. Since today, I'm going to uncork 10 remarkable stories that have shaped the wine industry, as we know, and enjoy it today. So if you're ready to join me, as I dive into some of my favorite stories from wine's history, let's get started and dive right into today's episode. Hi everyone. And welcome to the wine top talk. I'm your host, smelly Erin Rosar. And I'm so happy that you're here with me today. If we haven't met before, it's lovely to have her here. And if we have welcome back now, for those of you who are new, you should know that I've been a professional smelly for over 20 years now. And it's my passion and my privilege to make learning about wine. Not only fun and easy, but also practical. I want to make sure that you leave every single episode with some real life practical tips that you can use right away to help you find wines that you're going. To love and enjoy and be able to share with family and friends. I want you to think of me as your very own practical Somali. And on that note, this week's episode is filled with really fun and practical information, especially if you're playing trivial pursuit or our history buff. Now the facts that I am going to be sharing with you today are some of my favorites. And maybe some that you hadn't really thought about how they connected into the wine world from the science world, as we know it. So I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do And before I dive into the 10 facts for today's episode, I do want to share that I have some really fun freebies that I've created for you. You're going to find them in the show notes below, I have two summer bingo cards that I've created. So if you want to use them as a bit of a checklist of wines to try this summer, as well as if you are Richardson fan, there's an entire entertaining guide. Cocktails and appetizers and pairing ideas. So there's some really fun recipes and ideas and that guide. And I have one all about pretty pink cocktails because who doesn't love a beautiful cocktail any time of year. So be sure to check out the different freebies that I have offered right now, the Link's in the show notes below. Let's get started and it break down the 10 cool facts that I have to share with you today. And first up, let's travel back to around 4,100 BCE where archeologists discovered the oldest known winery in a cave in Armenia. Now this ancient winery included a wine press, fermentation vats, storage yards, and even grape seeds and dried grape vines. This remarkable discovery made in 2010 shows that wine making has ancient roots with people producing and enjoying wine for over 6,000 years. Now, on that note, we know that we can trace beers roots back to the times of the Sumerians and we give credit to the Egyptians for the first wine label where they had a higher glyphic to put on their wines. but I'm sure you'll agree. This is a really cool discovery to find all the person pieces of a working winery in one place. Next we're going up in history a little bit, but still way, way back. And here we're going to around the first century BCE, where we come to the Romans. Now, the Romans were instrumental in spreading viticulture and wine making across Europe. The introduced the systematic techniques, such as pruning and trellising vines. They also established vineyards and now famous regions like Bordeaux, burgundy, and the Rhine valley. The Romans didn't just grow vines. They documented their methods, laying the foundation down for modern viticulture. And if you listen to my episode a few weeks ago about sparkling wine from Britain, we know that we have the Romans to thank for bringing the original grapes into the isle of Britain to start the wine industry. It is important to note about the spread of Roman viticulture techniques in that as they went further, north and great volumes were no longer sustainable so the Roman system definitely worked within a certain style of climate and almost exceeded the ability to grow grapes and some of those more Northern areas. And they retreated back. If you will, into areas where their grapes would be able to grow and thrive in their wine, making techniques were there. now let's jump to 1855. And this is a cool fact for any of you who are lovers of Big red wines company, seven y'all and specifically the wines of Bordeaux. And what happened was we have what we know of today as the 1855 Bordeaux classification. And what happened during this time was that emperor Napoleon the third. Held, what is known as the exposition universal do petty. And he wanted to showcase the best wines of Bordeaux. And he also wanted to put them in a ranking system. What that meant was that it brought together 58 of the most famous red wines of the region. And it broke them down into five different classification levels. So they ended up with four first growths, 12 second growth, 14, third growth, 11 fourth growth and 17 fifth groups. Now it's important to know that no white wines of the region were classified at this time. This attorney or sweet wines at the area were classified, but done on a separate list. And since that time in 1855, there have only been two changes made to the list. The first change was made in 1856. And that was the addition of Chateau, Ken to the mass. And the second change was a big one. And this came in 1973, where Chateau Mouton Rothschild was moved from second growth to first growth. And this one definitely caused some buzz. So if you are a wine collector and you happen to have a bottle of 1973 Chateau Mouton Rothschild in your seller, this is a really big deal now we say that we have five first growth since Mouton Rothschild is in with the other first growth wines. The first growth wines or the wines, you're probably going to see behind glass, if you're in your favorite wine store or in the back section of a wine list at a restaurant and just for fun, they are Latour Chateau, Lafite, Rothschild, Mouton, Rothschild, now shadow, Margo, and hope Rian. Now you may be wondering why famous wines such as Patrice or the pin are not added on this list. And the wines of the Murdoch of the left bank So on the side of Bordeaux, closest to the ocean, we're the only ones classified in this classification. At the time, someone will say it was because the bridge wasn't done across the river, and many of these wines were rated by the shipping companies and other judges, and if you're interested in, want to learn more about the different classifications in Porto and changes, I would love to tell you more. So feel free to reach out on social media and let me know if you'd like to know more about the wines of Bordeaux and maybe a little bit more on the 1855 classification. It definitely has some controversy around it. And the fact that something was graded so many years ago, but we still hold it in place is definitely something that is a topic in the wine world. Now we move from a great story of famous wines to one, that is a story of crisis. And here, when we move into the 19th century and the European vineyards, we're going to talk about the full locks are epidemic. Now phylloxera, if you not sure what it is, it's a tiny little insect that lives in the ground and basically devastated the vineyards by attacking the roots of European vines. So what this is is, is a little louse. You're not even going to really see it by the eye. And this eats a great vine from the roots up now by the 1880s vineyards across your poor decimated. And the reason that this little Laos made it's way, it's their eyes that people were now doing ship travel between the new world north America. Back home to Europe. And it just thought that somebody probably brought a cutting of grapevines from north America. That survive. The ship travel because ship travel was at faster at the time and someone took it home, potentially gave it to a gift for someone. Look, I brought you a new plant from the new world, put it in the ground, unknowing that in the soil that most likely came with that root stock was this bug and all of the vines in Europe, the Venus vinifera. Differ buy-in so our Chardonnays are Merlow or Cabernet were not immuned. They did not have any natural resistance to this little bug. And so this bug hit the ground and said, thank you very much and began decimating the European vineyards, eating it from the ground up. Now, there were a solution did come and the solution came from grafting, European grapevines onto resistant American root stocks. You might be thinking, what does that mean? It basically means that we use the root ball from an American grape, because it has a natural immunity to this bug. And we graphed. If you remember grade seven science, you might've cut to plan. Plants apart and then kind of tape them together and see how they could join together. Or if you've ever had a tree branch in your yard fall off and you've needed to graft it back to the plant. That's exactly what we do. And. All of the vineyards in Europe are going to be grafted vines. When you see a winery that says ungrafted vines on their website or their label is a pretty big deal because this philoxenia, there's no cure for it. We just have a solution in that we know we have some root stocks that are immuned to this little bug. So unfortunately that 1880 somebodies, well intentioned. Probably sent home a gift of a rootstock of a great bind from north America, put it in the ground of Europe and for nearly a decade, it decimated vineyards across Europe. And therefore when we replanted, we had to think, and we were able to rethink about what we're going to put in the ground. Going forward, but it was a really, really hard time. And it's where we got into a lot of different fraudulent wine styles as well and where our wine laws came into place as well. So as much as this was a horrible thing, it did welcome in a lot of change because of. What happened and they needed to have some conversations about if we're replanting, what are we putting in here? We need some rules around what you can put on the label to guarantee the origin and what's actually inside the bottle. So well, it was a crisis. Good things came out of it. And our first wine laws evolved as well from this. Next we're going to move right into science. And here's a name you probably know. And that's the mid 19th century we have missed your Louis pasture Made groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of fermentation and yeast. And his research revealed that yeast is responsible for fermentation, transforming sugars into alcohol before his work People knew that something was happening. They couldn't explain why they thought there was a little bit of something magical. There was some witches burned at the stake for fermentation's not even working so magical mystical. Now we had science to back up what was actually happening and by doing so we had greater control over fermentation the process itself and could significantly improve the wine quality. And consistency. So while we give Louis pasture, obviously lots of credit for penicillin and the work that he did, the next time you have a glass, you can definitely raise a glass to him for the wine that you're enjoying as well. Now I'm going to fast forward to the 1920s. And again, here we have a story of crisis in that we hit the prohibition era in the United States. So from 1920 to 1933, we had. The production sale and transport of alcohol was banned. And this poised a significant challenge to the wine industry. However, let's be honest, the power of mankind to want to ensure that they have access to alcohol. Beverages is amazing how creative they could be. And definitely they came up with some good solutions. Some winery survived by producing sacramental wine for religious purposes, such as the Mondavi brothers took part in this other sold grape juice concentrates that they could ship and with it, they would put a warning label explaining how not ferment the juice into wine by adding sugar and maybe a yeast package that was included in the box. But you can see that during prohibition wine still moved around, but not in the same way. So there were many clever workarounds helped keep the wine industry. Industry afloat during this challenging time next speaking of California, I'm going to share with you that on May 24th, in 1976, we had what is known as the judgment of Paris. And this was a blind tasting organized by British wine merchant, Steven Spurrier, and this saw French judges rating, California wines higher than their prestigious front counterparts. If you have seen the movie sideways, this is the movie based on this event that happened. In 1976. Now this unexpected result put California on the map in regards to the wine world and demonstrated that excellent wine could be produced outside of traditional European regions. To say the descent, the wine world on a spin would be an understatement, but this was a turning point for the wines of California the United States and north America. And it broadened the horizons of the wine industry around the entire globe. The next fun fact I wanted to share with you is about how the development of refrigeration in the late 19th and early 20th century really impacted the wine industry the creation of refrigeration. Allowed winemakers to control fermentation temperatures, more precisely that improve the consistency of quality of their wines around the world. It also enabled safe transport and storage, expanding wine makers market. and making wine more assessable to consumers worldwide. It also opened up warm climate areas. So think of Australia, for example, or warmer areas in California, once we had refrigerated tanks to control fermentation to make it consistent. It completely changed how we made wine. The development of refrigeration is many times overlooked as such a key impact to the wines that we enjoy today, in my opinion, Then I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up that in the 1980s, the hundred point wine system was created And popularized by wine critic, Robert Parker. Now the original system rated wines on a scale from 50 to a hundred and provided a standard way to assess and compare wine quality. This system was created by Robert Parker for his newsletter, for his friends, as they wanted his input on what he thought about wines. And no one else had created a rating system such as he had that made it easy for the public to understand his profile. Now, Robert Parker, whether you vilify him for creating a point system or not, the fact of the matter is as he has given consumers a tool to use if they're going to enjoy a wine now, just like figure skating. Metal's a rating system is going to be subjective. And so with any point system, and obviously today, the point system has evolved. You probably have not seen a wine below anything in the high eighties for a long period of time, let alone down to the fifties where the original low mark was set. It's important to say that. People need to use them as a tool and potentially they'll find a critic or someone who's scoring the wines who has a pellet that aligns with theirs. but not all wines that have a high score are wines that everybody's going to like. So they are subjective and people need to use them as something that they can leverage, but they are not a hundred percent. And this. A hundred point system has had a last. Lasting input on the wine market, influencing both consumers and even wineries. Some to the point that we have a term saying Weiner has been parkerized meaning Robert Parker has not been shy, that he likes big, bold, rich red wines. And because those wines seem to get higher scores, we do have some people saying that his point system has evolved the wine industry to the point that all wines are starting to have the same format so that they can get higher points and therefore sell more. So you will be the judge. Judge, but there is definitely some controversy around the a hundred point score And lastly, I want to talk about the development of screw cap bottle closures. While initially they were met with great skepticism, screw hubs began gaining popularity in the late 20th century. And they have proven to be effective at preserving wine quality by preventing cork, Tane and oxidation today's crew cabs are widely accepted. And I'll say that a little hesitantly, because there are still some people who aren't convinced about them, especially for ageable wines, but especially for white wines and everyday drinking wines wines that you want to drink young and fresh. These are great closures, a screw cap definitely shows that we're continuing to make advancements and wine preservation technology even today. So it was a fun fact. You should know that the first step in the first screw cap was trialed by a Swiss wine in 1972. And also you should know that a puddling line that puts screw caps on is much more expensive than a bottle line that puts corks in. And just think about it for a minute. If I put a cork into a bottle, it takes just a machine to push the cork in if you will. But if I'm putting a screw cap bottle on, everything has to line up correctly from. The ridges on the bottle itself, too. How that cap screws on and how tightly it closes. So a screw cap bottle top is a big investment for a winery to make about their wine styles and definitely something that I think many people today have embraced as really good closure for their wine and super easy, especially with your traveling and you don't have a corkscrew with you. They offer a really great option for winemakers when they are deciding on what type of closure to use for their wine. So there you have it 10 fascinating historical facts that have been part of shaping the wine industry. As we know it today from ancient wineries to modern innovations, such as refrigeration scroop. Closures. The story of wine is rich with history, science, resilience, and incredibly brilliant personalities. I hope that you have enjoyed learning about these cool facts and maybe hopefully I've piqued your interest a little bit, that you had liked to learn a little bit more. I always joke when I'm teaching a class and say that if I have done it right, you leave feeling a little bit, like you have poison Ivy in a good way in that you're just itching to dive a little deeper, to find something else more about a topic that I've discussed. So if you have any questions or comments about today's episode, I would love to. Hear from you. Please reach out. You can reach me@helloatwinegirlacademy.com. We'd love to hear from you. And of course, if you are new here and you haven't yet had a chance to take your wine pallet personality quiz, you're going to find the link in the show notes below, along with the link to those freebies that I talked about at the start of the show. If you haven't yet had a chance to like share and subscribe, please do so new episodes come out every Tuesday with love to have you join us. And on that note, I want to wish you a wonderful week. Cheers to you. Bye now.