With the Reformation, the Church's influence in the production and marketing of wine diminished, notably in Northern Europe, but this did not shake the wine business as much as the discovery of corks a century later. Wine could now be stored and aged in bottles for the first time since the Roman Empire. The wine was kept in barrels throughout the Middle Ages, which had two drawbacks: first, too much time in wood may deprive a wine of all its fruit, and second, once the cask was opened, the wine always deteriorated unless consumed within a few days.
Wine of Peru History Barrels
The bottle answered the first difficulty by offering a neutral, non-porous material that allowed the wine to age in a more subtle fashion, and it handled the second problem by providing sealed containers of a manageable size for a single drinking session. The cork and bottle revolution, however, was not an instant success; bottles were then so bulbous that they could only stand upright, causing the corks to dry up and let air in. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, lengthier, flat-sided bottles with corks kept moist by contact with the wine had been developed. As a result, winemaking has taken on a whole new meaning.
Wine dungeon stone
Pharaohs, too, had bad days!
The Egyptian wine, on the other hand, was a distant relative of the wine we know today. White, pink, green, red, and dark blue grapes, as well as figs, palm, dates, and pomegranates, were used by the Egyptians. As you might assume, the flavor would have been somewhat different from what we would expect nowadays when served wine. Making wine from various fruits is similar to making wine from grapes, with the exception that sugar is added to aid fermentation.
The Egyptians employed trellises that were shaded from the sun (since the light in Egypt is too bright), and they recognized that the last 100 days before harvest were crucial.
The grapes were harvested and transported to a big pressing vat. The Egyptians pressed grapes by treading on them rather than crushing the seeds and stems with a stone press, which gave the wine a bitter taste.
Cyprus Wine Museum
It became worthwhile for a winemaker to strive for perfection, and wines from different plots of land could be compared for their attributes, with the most exciting being classed and separated from the less exciting plot wines. As a result, the magnificent names of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhine that we know today first came to prominence. Europe appeared to be one enormous vineyard in the early nineteenth century. In Italy, wine provided a living for 80% of the population, while extensive vineyards rolled southward from Paris in France. Also, thanks to explorers, colonists, and missionaries, the vine had spread over the globe. It accompanied the Spaniards to Latin America, the French Huguenots to South Africa, and the British to Australia. Is there anything that can be done to stem the tide of wine production? Yes, and it came in the shape of Phylloxeridae, an aphid that ate and destroyed plant roots. It arrived in Europe in the 1860s, and by the early twentieth century, it had wiped out all of Europe's vineyards, as well as most of the rest of the world.
The remedy was to graft the fragile European grape, Vitus Grapevine, onto the Phylloxeridae-resistant American rootstock, Vitus Rip aria, which was, of course, a very costly endeavor. The most immediate effect in Europe was that only the best sites were replanted, resulting in a sharp reduction in the overall area under vines. Vineyard acreage is only now expanding to old original places lost over a century ago in other areas where similar destruction was wreaked. Science and technology changed viticulture and winemaking in the twentieth century, bringing even more upheaval. Despite chemical formulas and automated wineries, the vine keeps its allure and mystique, attracting wine lovers from all over the world.
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