A Brief History of Wine

6000 to 4000 BC

Amphora Approximate start of cultivation of grapes to produce wine in Asia Minor.

3000 to 2000 BC

The trade and production of wine begins to take off in the Meditaranean.

Around 2500 BC

Texts on ancient egyptian tombs show that wine was being made from grapes.

Around 2000 BC

Greeks and the Cretans began to produce wine, the Cretans became famous for exporting quality wine.

Around 1600 BC

Wine is brought to europe by the ancient Greeks

Around 1100 BC

Vines first planted in Spain in the area around Cádiz. These wines were more like Sherry, and were rich and heavy.

Around 1000 BC

Italy and Sicily start to produce their own wine.

Around 500 BC

Wine making Southern France and Arabia.

500 BC to 300 AD

Wine making is further spread by the Roman Empire.

92 AD

Due to the large surplus of grapes the emperor Domitian decrees that half the vines outside Italy were be uprooted!

Around 100 AD

Smell Wine Monks in France begin to establish vineyards, and due to the religious significance of wine, production techniques were preserved by these monks after the fall of the Roman empire.

500 to 1200 AD

The Dark Ages. Very little in the way of advancements are made to the production of wine in this time.

1500 to 1600 AD

Colonialisation saw that wine was bought to the Americas

Around 1650

Early glass bottles start to be produced. They were squat, broad and rounded. Before this bottles were usually made of pottery or leather.

1655

The first vines are planted in South Africa, and wern't partucularly sucessful.

1688

Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk who is appointed treasurer at the Abbey of Hautvillers. Dom Pérignon's duties was the management of the cellars and wine making. He is creditied with laying the foundations for making Champagne.

1698

The worlds oldest running wine shop, Berry Bros and Rudd, opens in London in 1698. George Berry didn't take over the shop until 1803.

1729

Ruinart became the first recorded Champagne house.

1743

Claude Moët founds the House of Moët, which has become the largest champagne house of today.

Around 1770

California starts to produce wine. Within a century, it became one of the great wine-producing regions of the world.

1788

Australia starts producing wine.

1819

New Zealand starts producing wine.

1816

First prohibition law is enacted in Indiana.

1840

Prohibition laws have been enacted in seven of the thirty one states.

1855

The Bordeaux classification system received official recognition. This system rates the Bordeaux wines based on their market price.

1857

French chemist Louis Pasteur discovered that yeasts were responsible for turning grape juice into wine. This discovery led to better methods for producing wine.

1863

Grape cuttings from America were taken to the Botanical Society in England. Unfortunately these cuttings were infected with species of root louse called Phylloxera Vastatrix. This louse, over the next twenty years, devastated the vineyards in europe. Fortunately a solution to this problem was provided by Thomas Munson, who was a horticulturist from Dennison in Texas. His solution involved grafting American rootstock, which was resistant to Phylloxera, on to Europe's vines.

1867

The world's oldest wine bottle is found in Germany, it dates from around 325 AD

1880

Grafting of rootstocks becomes more widely accepted.

1882

Carl Wienke invents the corkscrew called the 'Butler's Friend'

1888

H.S. Heeley invents the double winged lever corkscrew.

1920 to 1933

Prohibition comes into full force in the USA with the Volstead Act, ironically this only increases the consumption of alcohol. Unfortunately for the vineyards they were mostly shut down.

1935

France sets up a country wide Appelation system to help control the quality of French Wine.

1951

Max Schubert at Magill Estate, Australia, develops the first experimental vintage of Grange Hermitage (now known as Penfolds Grange)

1976

The wine world is given a shock when judges, at a blind tasting in Paris, place two Californian wines above those from France!

Wine Society

The University of Bath Student's Wine Society