Wine Pre-History

By Larissa Duwakin2010000442

Introduction to Wine Business Online

Picture 1 : Hieroglyphics of people working on the production of wine.

ContentSlide 1 Cover PageSlide 2 ContentSlide 3 IntroductionSlide 4 Where did the Word Wine Come FromSlide 5 Earliest Discovery of ViticultureSlide 6 Other DiscoveriesSlide 7 Use of Wine in Pre HistorySlide 8 Development in the Wine IndustrySlide 9 Wine Development ContinuedSlide 10 Other Wine Industry DevelopmentsSlide 11 Difficult Times in Pre – HistorySlide 12 Conclusion

IntroductionThe significances of wine has played a vital role in human history over the centuries, although the beginning of which wine began has many different theories. These theories are based around the evidence of hieroglyphic and discoveries that are still occurring in this 21st century, while some theories are based primarily on religion. However, wine is not primarily used just for the case of social drinking but also in cultural events and medicine, these are only a few methods, of which wine was usedin the earliest of the centuries.

However, over this time the quality and quantity of wine has continued to grow with the development and expansion of technology and science but with improvementscame disease and sacrifice. Compared with today's revolutionary method the comparison of ancient society and today’s society of wine and viticulture is dramatically different. But without the start of viticulture in the early centuries, the development over the last few decades would not have occurred. (Comer, 2009).

Where did the word Wine come from?

The word ‘Wine’ is an antiquity and is considered to have a unknown origin. However, the first representation of the word wine was by the Hittites, who referred to wine aswiian or as uianas . The Hittites were a dominant linguistic group in the Middle East of the 1500 B.C. In the language of the Luwian uin was how the word wine was represented, this was a influence of the Hittites language. However, in Greek the earliest scripts speaks of woinos as being wine which in classic Greek refered to as oinos as thew was lost. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977). In Latin and Etruscan the vinum was the word for wine which derived from the Greeks language, this continued on to words such as vino, vin, Wein and then on towine. (Robert, 2006).

The Hittites word for wine influenced through to neighouring languages such as Armenian gini, Mingrelian gvin-i, Georgian gvino, Semitic wayin ,which is hebrew, while Sabaean, Arabic and Ethiopian used wayn for wine. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977)

Earliest Discoveries of Viticulture

According to religion the bible describes Noah’s Ark to come to lay on a mountain andto Noah’s desire of becoming a man planted a vineyard and drinks the wine and became very drunk. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977). While the popular deity Dionysus or Roman Bacchus is said to have created the vine and used his divine power to make wine, milk and honey flow from the ground. (Foulkes, 1994). This indicates that wine was one of the first things that man created. Although this is based on believes, one idea be certain is that no one can be assured who did made the first vintage wine, it is still based on discovery which is still occurring in this century.

What can be known is the Ancient Egypt provides some of the best records of an earlywine industry in the predynastic period with wine lists, and wall painting of hieroglyphics, while Egyptians recorded winemakers, vineyards and vintages on individual wine jars and initiating the first discovery of wine labels. (Foulkes, 1994). There was also a form of wine press and pruning and arbors activities discovered. There is evidence of the production of both red and white wines in the Delta area and to some of the areas to the south as remnants of grape seed were found in villages dating from several thousand years B.C. ago, indicating that viticulture began to flourish in the Pharaonic Egypt period in the eastern Mediterranean or the Caucasus in at least 3000 B.C. (Domine, 2001).

Other DiscoveriesCivilization of the classic Greek and Rome have traced the beginning of wine back to itspre – history and based legends about its discovery, while Babylonians regulated laws for the operation of wine shops which was discovered by a written description of‘magical, jewel bearing vineyard’ in the 18th century B.C. in a place called ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’. (Foulkes, 1994). There has been discoveries of vinifera plantations in Egypt and Mesopotamia which can only have been from the 4th millennium B.C. while also plantation in Aegean from around the 2500 B.C. This indicated that vineyards were being used for viticulture as early as the 6th millennium. (Domine, 2001). There has been unearthing of cultivated pips by Archaeologists in the period of Caucasus by the eastern eastern end of the Black Sea. The Cultivated pips have been dated back to 7,000 years ago in Turkey or Georgia, which is considered to be a ideal growing climate and possibly the first wild vineyard to be planted. (Foulkes, 1994).

The Use of Wine in Pre-HistoryWhen the term wine is represented in pre history it wasn’t just for the pleasure of drinking as it is done today but to do with a persons standard rating in wealth and for such things as roles in religion , diet and medicine. (Foulkes, 1994). In today’s society wine is used frequently in regard to casual drinking over dinner and outings, however in pre – history times when having guests over to feast good wine was to be served to begin and then the bad wine as guest became tipsy and less critical of the taste of the wine, but if the host was to serve the bad wine then the good wine the host was considered to be very wealthy as the availability of good wine was hard to find and expensive. Being that good wine was hard to come by this entailed that priests and royalty obtained the largest amounts of available good wine. As this wine was highly available to priests, wine slowly became apart of religious ceremonial of the Church and adapted into the Christian religion.(Amerine & Singleton, 1977).

Wine was used as a medicine by most Greek doctors as an aperitifs, which stimulates the appetite before a meal, however blends of odorous material or goat cheese and white barley were added to many Greek wines before consumption, not to improve quality but to contribute to the overall diet of the Greeks. While dried grapes were cooked or boiled as a source of a sweet syrup. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977).

Development in the Wine Industry

In 1792 – 1750 B.C. the effects of temperature and air had become known by the Code of Hammurabi. The use of cool temperatures on wines of Asia Minor and Caucasus by placing wine in jars and sinking then into containers made of stone or plaster, or the ground to avoid leakages, allowed also for constant temperature. While pitch and grease were the ideal way to for tops of contains, which became clay amphorae later, to be sealed from the harmful effects of air. This indicates that the quality of wine in the period of pre Hebrew and Greek was poor and after fermentation was consumed. However, in the Classic Greek the wine industry began to have a much higher degree of quality in the development of wine as Iliad and Odyssey of Homer contain wine descriptions of developing wine. The use of herbs and other material were used on wine to cover undesirable odors that were correlated with the spoilage of wine, indicating the production of alcohol in wine also.

This allowed for Greek to make wine one of its most important trade of the century in which other neighbouring cities and countries encouraged as discoveries of Greek wine contains have been found throughout the Middle East, Egypt and the Mediterranean. From Greek flagons and cups for wine in the pre Christian period wine reached Celtic Europe from the Mediterranean. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977).

Wine Development ContinuedBy the first century of the Christian Era the process of wine making was well on its way to establishment. As Greek trade increase so to did the need for more wine and in return more exposure to more countries such as Spain and the far east shores of the Black Sea, to the culture of viticulture and wine making. However, the wine was still considered to be of poor quality from the warm climate and lack of storage.

The Greeks civilization played a important role in the wine industry, however the Romans contributed greatly to the grape and wine industry also. Romans were the first to classify grape varieties by there colour, ripening time, disease, soil preference and wines types that may be produced. They also had the best methods for cultivation for different varieties of grapes and pruning of vines and improve the yield of grapes via fertilization. However, pruning to the Romans was considered a skill which detailed the invention, that appears to be theirs, of the pruning knife. In the Roman period there was also a method of growing grape vines in trees, it was not ideal for pruning, over cropping or ripening of fruit. It is not understood why the method was used. At the end of the Roman period a wooden cooperage was first introduced to Northern Italy to replace the amphora from the late Greek period. This enabled the wine industry to have a great advance in allowing wine to be stored without contact with air for long periods of time. The wooden cooperage had wooden staves that were cooper fittedtogether while they were bent so that pressure was equally distributed at both ends of the staves. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977).

Other Wine Industry Developments

Wine spoilage was a huge downfall in the wine industry as both the Greek and the Romans were unable to control bacteria origin. Almost 2,000 years later in the future were methods mastered for controlling bacteria in wine. The Greeks and Romans conversely discovered that filling rooms with smoke at warm conditions slowed the process of wine spoilage, which lead to early forms of heating wine known as pasteurization. However, in the Roman period a wide range of treatments were developed to slow down and reduce spoilage and acetic in wine. These treatments included reducing acidity by addition of alkaline materials or to cover acidity by foreign materials, to increases the brightness of wine by salt water which also diluted a wine off flavours. And the addition of resin to wine, while natural acidity deficiencies were corrected by gypsum. Glass blowing was popular in the Roman period which encouraged few wines to be placed into bottles and stored for a lengthy time, while wine goblets were much more common. In many passages of Horace and Virgil wine quality is honored as something more then just a alcoholic beverage that is consumed but a achievement by man.(Amerine & Singleton, 1977).

Difficult Times in Pre - History

Emperor Domitian in the first century passed a law to prohibit the growth of vineyards in France and Rhone that detailed that all vineyards be removed as to prevent competition between wine exported from Italy and Gaul, while also increasing the production of grain. However, the wine industry and agriculture itself began to decline with the Roman Empire down falling. In this fall the appreciation for wine began to lack and continued into the middle ages, wine was not in high demand with production in small amounts, while Europes chaos from 400 B.C. played a contributing factor as it continued until the late thirteenth century. However, through the middle ages the demand for wine for the Church enabled wine to be preserved. From the tenth to the fifthteenth centuries the established monastic, a organization with a stable ample of labour, grew. Monastic organization either preserved or discovered that of the main wine districts of Europes, while also they owned and developed vineyards in Burgundy and Germany from the period of 400 to 1200 B.C. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977). While at the end of the Middle Ages the wine industry in the Western World was well developed with Germany mastering the oak casks and coopers for wine storage for the future of wine making. The law to ban vineyards from France was lifted by Marcus Aurelius Probus to insure that his troopers of the north and east provinces were provided with wine. (Domine, 1994).

ConclusionCompared to that of Pre – History it is evident that a lot has developed over the centuries from the tools use in the vineyard to the methods used to produce wine. In today's society of the 21st century, the age is considered to be golden as wine production percentage is at an all high, production per hectare has increases, the overall cost of production is relatively lower, while the development of varieties, control of disease and understanding climate has helped in assuring a greater success then back in the earlier centuries. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977). There has also been a development of the New World, the New World is that which reflects a particular terroir, such as virgin soil in gentle climates. This New World includes countries such as Western USA, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. (Foulke, 1994).

However, all historians are recognized in history for there contribution to the wine industry, while the Romans and Greeks played an important part in the revolution of wine over the centuries. These revolutions have allowed for today’s society to have a higher quality and a high demand for wine. Conversely as demands are met the challenge for the future is to retain the quality and terroir of the New Worlds by decreasing crops and decreasing overall amount of wine to avoid an excess of wine to be blended and sold in bulk to different countries for lower prices and under different labels other then that of the New World itself. (Amerine & Singleton, 1977).

ReferencesBooks

Amerine, M. & Singleton, V. (1977). Wine An Introduction Second Edition. Los Angeles:CA. University of California Press.

Foulkes, C. (1994). Laroussa Encyclopedia of Wine. Great Britian. Hamlyn Press.

Domine, A. (2001). Wine. Madrid:Spain. Cambridge Publishing.

Internet

Comer, B. (2009). Wine Pre – History. Retrieved 3th August 2011, fromhttp://www.slideshare.net/BAComer/wine-pre-history

Robert, C. (2006). Wine and Wines. Retrieved 3th August 2011, from http://www.wineandwines.com/

Picture 1 Retrieved 5th August 2011, fromhttp://www.vinaspora.com/EN/about_wine/index.php?artId=102