What can World Historians Learn about Presenting History using Wine as the Main Theme?

What can World Historians Learn about Presenting History using Wine as the Main Theme?

Introduction

Historians coincide the history of wine with the history of the western world in a number of ways. They generally have the same opinion that wine was most likely discovered unintentionally in the Fertile Crescent region, the area between the Persian Gulf and Nile during the period of the world's first civilizations. While the small settlements developed into cities and states and trade started to expand on a bigger scale all over the Mediterranean, grapes enjoyed transport by the Romans, Greeks and Phoenicians until the awareness of winemaking reach all through the Mediterranean region and ultimately through the prominent regions in Europe.

Discussion

Historians like Thomas Pinney, Tim Unwin and Rod Phillips have recommended that consumption patterns and the successive spread of wine production were connected to the symbolic needs of a number of religious cultures. The spread of Christianity that came with European voyages, in particular, aided the circulation of wine as a worldwide commodity. Viticulture and wine consumption patterns spread together with European colonization and influence. It ought to be noted that wine was made in numerous societies before this period by fermenting the juice of fruit. However, by the age of the Enlightenment, the most flourishing global commercially marketed wine was based on grapes. At present, those grapes are almost exclusively Vitis vinifera, a hybrid developed in France and then transplanted all over the world. Wine and V. vinifera grape vines are cultivated and consumed in a range of forms, from distilled alcohols, which are comparatively uniform, to fermented drinks with extraordinary variations.

The 17th century marked a decisive moment in world wine consumption. Consumption of alcoholic beverages augmented all through Europe however, predominantly, among the urban poor. Fortified wines and also the ones with higher alcohol content met this new consumer demand. Simultaneously that demand expanded in Europe, a key wine market developed in the Spanish colonies of South America and the English colonies in North America and in Australia. Capital was invested in production to perk up overall quality and to make new wines to meet changing consumer tastes. Some of these new wines like the port, champagne and the new clarets of Bordeaux were costly to produce and so out of the reach of the mass of consumers. These historians have put forward that these wines appealed to the ruling classes, especially, as a means of symbolically preserving their social position. At a time when other types of wines and alcoholic beverages were increasingly integrated into the daily diet, these new, expensive wines were consumed by elites as part of an aesthetic experience, a sign of connoisseurship, and a symbol of their wealth, status, and prestige.

Then the medical doctors of 18th century stressed the health benefits of wine to consumers and scientists of various kinds who turned their attention to all aspects of viticulture and wine making to improve production ...