History of vine and wine

The wild vine is a vine that grew on trees and riparian strips up to several tens of meters high. She appeared before humanity, and is still represented in Europe by Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris, including Rhine flooded forest.

The first traces of vines planted were observed on the flanks of the Caucasus, in Georgia and the current date back more than 7000 years. In the village Shoulaveris Gora we found the remains of grapes and wine prior to 5000 to 5600 BCE. The first performance of the process of winemaking is that of the Egyptians, in the third millennium BC. BC bas-reliefs are depicting scenes of harvesting and pressing dating from 2500 BC. AD After its establishment in ancient Greece, the vine becomes an essential part of agriculture for the Greeks, and became one of the three pillars of the "Mediterranean triad [2]" cereal-olive-vine. Greeks and Phoenicians, themselves producers, implanting the vine across the Mediterranean during their many trips between 1500 and 500 BC. J.-C, particularly in Italy, the Romans developed in culture and as the industry [Ref. necessary]. It was during the creation of Massilia (Marseilles) to around 600 BC. BC, the Phoenicians that implanting the vine in Celtic Gaul. The Advanced Roman in 125 BC. BC, along the Rhône corridor north and west into Languedoc, sees the spread of the vine and the development of its industry. Narbonne and Port-Vendres in shopping malls are the most important [Ref. necessary].

Production Narbonne beginning to compete with Roman wines, in 92 the emperor Domitian fact prohibit the planting of grapes and ordered the uprooting of 50% of the vineyard Mediterranean ban lifted only two hundred years later, by Probus. The vineyards of Bordeaux, Rhone and Languedoc flourished under Julius Caesar and then the vine reaches the Paris region, which will long remain one of the largest French wine regions. The Gauls, developing the wine culture, improve the processes of winemaking by the technique of aging in oak barrels. The decline of the Roman Empire in the fifth century would have been a blow to agricultural development Gallic.

The Middle Ages

From the fourth century, Christianity contributes to strengthening the value attached to wine, taking over a ruined Roman Empire. The liturgy of the communion under both species performed until the thirteenth century, is a driving force for keeping the wine tradition. The Middle Age is the witness of the progress of quality wine. While the wines of antiquity were cut water and decorated with herbs and spices, wine in the form that we eat today is the Middle Ages. The expansion of Christian civilization is causing the expansion of vineyards in the world.

In 800, Charlemagne took measures to improve the quality of wine in an order which states: "What we are responsible stewards of our vineyards within their department and do work well, they put the wine in a good washer and they take every precaution so that it is spoiled in any way. But the real custodians of quality are the monks who maintain the tradition in wine. Cathedrals and churches are owners of vineyards, on condition of activities of the "holy wine", the monks run many monastic vineyards, thus contributing to the creation of quality vineyards still exist today.

At the end of the tenth century, Bordeaux wine region only not to be under the influence of the church begins to grow. The Grand Duchy of Aquitaine, united to the crown of England meets the English fleets of claret with the English love them. The Bordeaux vineyard takes its real boom in the late twelfth century.

In the early twelfth century held a very important achievement for the Champagne vineyards: the establishment of the great champagne charter by which William of Champeaux, bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne, confirms the farm fields and vineyards of the Abbey St. -Pierre-aux-Monts. The charter is regarded as the founding of the Champagne vineyards.

Gradually changing tastes and wines are heady neglected for wines lighter and lighter. Wine is the subject of commercial real battle in which the various wines express their personality. While it is difficult to imagine the taste of wine medieval, it can be assumed in view of the techniques used, as wines are present in close, the first ranking ever thought of spending made in 1224 the vineyards still considered today .

Throughout the period of the Middle Ages, France was the largest exporter of wine. Paris and Ile-de-France is the largest vineyard in France, which supplies the cities, large consumers of wine.
The Modern and contemporary [edit]
Old copper sulfate was placed on the back of an animal used in the department of Aude.

The colonization of new worlds it soon became an expansion of the vineyard.

Traces of the first South African vineyards dating from 1659 are documented in the Cape Province, where it is implanted by early settlers. The conquest of Mexico and throughout South America, focusing on spreading the Christian religion, similarly accompanied by the development of the vines in these regions. There are traces of vineyards in the Andean piedmont (central Chile and Argentina), although the deployment of a wine industry in these countries is due to Bordeaux varietals introduced in Chile in the mid-sixteenth century.

In North America, the vines are already in the wild, especially in the East, in the current state of Virginia, but also in Canada, as vines winding around trees. This variety (Vitis riparia) edible fruit does, however, a very low potential wine contrary to the European variety (Vitis vinifera). Some congregations missionaries like the Jesuits and the Order of Friars Minor récollets Canada, trying repeatedly to make wine from these local lambrusques to fill the needs of the Eucharist, but these attempts were abandoned wine at the end seventeenth century. In the seventeenth century, European plants were imported and planted on the east coast of the United States, but they do not resist local diseases of the vine. This is the eighteenth century that the California wine grows under the leadership of Franciscan monks. In Canada, the Great Lakes region appears to be most conducive to the acclimation of the vine and some European varieties, located in the middle of the eighteenth century to grow even today. Wine production in North America of the nineteenth century, relatively large, is cut short at the beginning of the twentieth century by the introduction of Prohibition (1917). The activity resumed at the end of the period of "moderation" in 1933. The experience of Prohibition will encourage American growers to engage in the production of quality wines. French hybrids are introduced in the twentieth century and it was in 1939 that the importer Frank Schoonmaker wine launches the idea of varietal wines (wines from a single variety), a product that will make the famous vineyards of the north America and with it that of all the New World. The wine industry is growing particularly American in the 1970s thanks to new technologies [Ref. needed], even if they are European vines are still behind the vines [ref. necessary].

While in the southern Mediterranean, the rise of Islam puts a brake [ref. necessary] to wine production, the European wine continues to grow. Until the seventeenth century, the wine is the drink only safe and storable. Only with the development of beer on the one hand, the importation of distant colonies of tea, coffee and chocolate showing new drinks on the other hand, as deployment of running water, that wine is dethroned. The wine industry threatened by these newcomers takes place with the invention of the bottle and its rapid development. The first wines to give custody to the wine trade a second wind. The Château Haut-Brion was the first to commercialize a wine of "reserve" wine to which he has made a selection during harvest assuring a certain quality.

While the vine extends around the world, the European wine, especially French, has its share of problems. In 1731, Louis XV banned new plantings to curb the production of mediocre wines, except in soils suitable for producing quality wines. The French Revolution, restoring the freedom of culture, in breaking up the church property to distribute to the people, will profoundly disturb the landscape French wine. The vine and wine become the centers of the most important activities, particularly in southern Europe where they occupy in Italy 80% of the workforce. The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, promoting the development of transport, will facilitate the delivery of products and enable the development of the wine industry, seating supremacy wines of Southern Europe. We continue to attribute the virtues of wine drink hygienic antiseptic qualities [ref. necessary] [3].

But phylloxera, inadvertently imported from the United States in the years 1865-70, plunged the wine in his first major crisis. The decimated European vineyards is fortunately saved by the importation of American plants resistant to insects. The French production this fall and are vineyards southern who profit by placing on the market wines of lesser quality.

The twentieth century is conducive to industrial and technological revolutions. The progress of research and numerous investments enable the development of a science of wine, oenology. The quality of wine and the precise ranking of vineyards occurs gradually to reach the one we know today.

Long development, expansion and development of viticulture in the world have operated under the leadership of religious communities. During the last century, the constant search for better quality and greater cultural importance given to wine confirmed its role in Western civilization.