WINE OF THE WORLDBy Jaden Jarnot and Yue-Shan Lam

Wine is a worldwide beverage that is drank for both pleasure and religious reasons. While we know that this is true, do we know exactly where wine originated?

Sure we know that the ancient peoples enjoyed drinking wine regularly but do know how these people discovered fermentation? Also why would somebody even attempt to spoil the grapes thus unintentionally making wine? In this article you will not only find why this happened but how and what wine was then used for.

Wine was used as offering for the gods and the romans believed that there was a god of wine, Bacchus. Bacchus was a version of Dionysus the Greek god of wine. The romans worshiped their god in separate templums or shrines. The romans believed that Bacchus invented wine and gave it to man thus making wine a very important part of food and religion.

It turns out that wine was discovered when someone sealed some “spoiled” grapes or grape juice in a jar. This person labeled it poison, and after a while the label fell off. When someone came to that person’s house,

the guest wanted of fermentation starting the something to drink. So the home owner got the “spoiled” grape juice and they drank the juice. That started the cultivation of grapes and the discovery cultivation spread of different techniques of wine making.

Fermentation is when grapes or any kind of a drink food, grapes, is mashed and sealed in a container. What happens in the container is over time the sugars turn into ethyl. Also the bacteria, and other substances in the grapes are being developed by oxygen and turning into or being affected by the bacteria being formed.

Once this discovery was made wine was able to be produced in larger batches, and it was able to be sold to the public and the high officials in Rome had it for almost every meal. Wine could be sold anywhere but was often sold in the Forum or market place. The wine was also an export from Rome, and one of the places it was exported to was Greece. Greece made the wine even better. The grape vines they used in both

Greece and Rome were first growing in the wild but then the Romans and Greeks domesticated the grape vine. A fact about wine is back in Rome and Greece and sometimes in other places, over all the Greek wine was the most expensive.

As time changed the wine would change and so would the flavor and it could be confusing to know what type of wine is in each sealed container. So, they used wax seals called intaglio. This way they could preserve wine and know what was inside.

Different types of wine were soon developed and wine techniques could be affected by region or places that different lands that had been taken over. The most expensive wine would be the highest quality because it was made of the highest quality grapes and fermented in special places off limits to the public. One type of very popular and expensive wine called Passum. Passum was almost completely composed of dried grapes or raisins. The only people who could drink these wines were the very rich, king, or Rex Romae and sometimes the higher ranking officials. Even the poor drank very crude weak wine mixed with water or vinegar that sometimes were not even fermented such as Mustum. Wine was drank almost every day and people had to mix them with large amounts of water because they were so strong.

And this is how the idea and culture of wine spread through Rome and the world.

Resources:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/biology-terms/fermentation-info.htm

http://romanhistorybooks.typepad.com/roman_history_books_and_m/2009/01/wine-in-ancient-rome.html

http://www.unrv.com/economy/wine-chart.php

http://ezinearticles.com/?Who-Made-the-First-Wine-Anyway?&id=54004