#30: The History of Wine Part 3 of ? (the Cliff’s Squire’s Notes version)

September 2023

The more I write about the History of Wine, the more I realized that I could not give the subject any sort of credence in what I thought would be three articles.  I’ll simply do my best to hit (what I consider to be) the most important moments since this glorious product from Mother Nature was discovered by early humans.  A wise sage once said (and methinks he was correct) that “the history of wine is the history of mankind”.  But first things first in order to answer the question I posed in my second article back in July:

How Would You Describe Those Ancient Wines of Yesteryear?                          

In one word, terrible!  Those early wines would hardly be recognized as acceptable wine by today’s standards.  Early humans began to realize that wine “went south” and quickly spoiled when exposed to air (oxidation) but there was no understanding of why that happened.  Early wine containers were porous and there was no way to seal the wine from exposure to oxygen.  Very quickly, after the new wine was made, the wines became nearly undrinkable.  (Try leaving a half-full glass of good wine exposed to air for three days and then re-taste it…and that was starting with good wine).  When folks realized that newly-made wine did spoil quickly, better vessels were used and better ways to seal those vessels were invented, but, at best, they were still not anywhere close-to-being air-tight.  The wines still spoiled.  As far back as two thousand years ago, Egyptians and Romans grew to understood this concept of wine oxidation, so they began to look for ways to put better seals on their wine vessels, beeswax being a good start.  Beeswax sealed wine containers (stamped with the year of production!) were found in King Tutankhamen’s tomb and this happened 1300 years before Christ was born!  Still, for thousands of years, none of the vessels or ways to seal them worked very well, and the wines spoiled if not consumed shortly after the wine was made.

So, What Did The Ancients Do?

Since airtight containers and stoppers had yet to be developed, the ancients really had two options: they could either drink the new wine right away or find some way to offset the undesirable smells and off-flavors from the inevitable spoilage.  A myriad of different things were added to the wine to hide the unwanted smells and tastes from oxidation, some with more success than others.  Honey was used as was salt, resin, pitch, ash, lead (yes, lead!) a multitude of different spices and even sea-water was added to the wine.  Cato the Elder, an early Greek historian who lived hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, wrote that “it was barbaric not to add seawater to wine” (his personal recommendation was a ratio of 1:3.)   

I’ve included a photo of Cato taken from an existing statue.  Yikes!  (Maybe he should have not consumed so much seawater?)  Did any of the above adds make the wine drinkable by today’s standards?  The answer would, again, be a resounding “Yuk!”, but the practice of adding things to offset the wine’s oxidized characteristics was used (and a few still are) for millennia.  The problem with masking the unwanted, oxidative qualities was that it did not solve the problem itself.  What remained was the still-looming question: how to make the newly-wine last longer?  Then, about the time Christopher Columbus was sailing across the oceans blue, a big discovery was made that helped prevent the wine from going bad in the first place!

What Was That Discovery?

In the late 1400’s, some enterprising wine folks in Europe discovered that adding a small amount of sulfur to the newly-made wine not only seemed to mask any oxidized characteristics that might happen, but, for the first time, this addition actually delayed the fresh wine from spoiling in the first place.  To this day, most wineries around the world add a tiny amount of sulfur (sulfur dioxide) to wines as a preservative to prolong the life of the wine.

Was Anything Else Added to Wine That Had Success?

With the addition of sulfur, as the wine tended to slosh around inside the barrels.  Then, someone had the great idea to top off the head space between the wine and the barrel bung with brandy.  (There are more than a few myths how this came about and who did it).  The result of that brandy addition gave the wine a unique taste that the folks in England seemed to adore and they named the new wine “Port” after the city of Oporto.  Low and behold, the brandy addition not only stopped the wine from further deterioration, but gave the wine a unique taste that the British wine drinkers seemed to love!  The English became fascinated with Port and it created a huge, present-day industry for both Portugal and England!   Great Ports, to this day, can last for decades and don’t seem to spoil! 

Any Other Additions That Proved to be Successful and Are Used Today?

It all depends on your definition of “successful”, but over 2,000 years ago, the ancient Greeks would add tree resin to offset the oxidized smells and tastes.  To this day, “Retsina” is still being produced and sold in Greece.  The resin not only masks any oxidation, but it also tends to preserve the wine, so, an older bottle of Retsina may taste pretty much the same as did when it was newly bottled.  The question is whether or not it tasted acceptable to begin with.  (I think it tastes a lot like sucking on a old surfboard, but don’t take my word.  Go to Bottle Barn, buy a bottle and see for yourself)!  

Any Other Breakthroughs?

Yes!  In the 1600’s, there were two huge developments!  Glass wine bottles were invented and corks from the bark of trees were used as effective bottle stoppers! Finally!  Glass bottles with a chunk of cork in the top sealed the wine better than anything else up until then.  Those two developments, plus the addition of a small amount of sulfur to the wine, made these newly bottled wines last much longer than ever before.  Early folks may not have understood much about the science of wine, but they were on the right track in making wine last longer before spoilage. 

The Next Article!

Two hundred years after glass, corks and sulfur began to be used universally in winemaking, a monstrous breakthrough happened in the world of wine!  We began to understand the science behind how grapes turn themselves into wine and we gave that magic process a name: “fermentation”!  More about that remarkable moment in the history of wine next time!

“Wine’s afoot! Sharpen thy corkscrew!”    Wm Shakespeare HENRY IV, Part 3