2nd DRAFT 4

Wine & History

We are pleased to welcome Simon L. Gruber to WinePhilosopher.com. Simon is a professional writer, a knowledgeable wine lover, and collector. Simon will be writing this monthly column for us. We are sure you will enjoy his informative and entertaining style of writing.

Wine and History part 1

by Simon L. Gruber

sgruber@winephilosopher.com

Welcome! This is the first in a series of articles about wine's role and influence in the history of our culture. I'm interested in

After much thought about how to tackle this mammoth task, I decided to start at the beginning, by looking at the origin and unique characteristics of Vitis Vinifera, the species of grape which is used to make virtually all fine wines produced today.

There are many species of grape throughout the world, but Vinifera alone is used in the vast majority of wines produced commercially. It is believed that wild Vinifera emerged in Eastern Asia, where it evolved from other species of grapes. The earliest archeological evidence of cultivated grapes has been found in Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union) and dated between 7,000 and 5,000 B.C. By this time, in other words, farmers had started to shape the wild Vinifera vines and begun the selection process that would lead, eventually, to Cabernet, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and the other noble varieties used for the finest wines.

But first -- why are grapes, far more than any other fruit, so highly valued for making wine? We know that beer, wine and distilled spirits can be made from any number of plant materials, the only requirement being that they contain sugar, which is fermented to produce alcohol. Grapes, however, have certain key characteristics that make them particularly desirable. Compared to most other fruits, ripe grapes contain more sugar -- and with Vinifera, the sugar concentration can be as high as 1/3 of the entire grape, by volume. Higher sugar levels translate, during fermentation, to higher levels of alcohol. Grapes also contain significant levels of various acids, tannins, and other components that add complexity and provide an essential counterpoint to a wine's basic elements: fruit flavors, alcohol, and sometimes, residual sweetness.

Additionally, the grape vine is a highly adaptable and hardy plant that can be grown in a wide variety of climates and soil conditions. This adaptability, in fact, can be traced largely to the genetic characteristics of the grape family. First, this plant has a larger number of genes than most other fruits. Moreover, the genes in grape vines are highly prone to being re-combined in new ways, so grapes tend to mutate more often.

Also, any individual vine can spontaneously produce a bud that has new characteristics, different even from other parts of the same plant. This bud can be propagated through cloning by an observant grower and watched for potentially interesting new properties. More so than with most other plants, therefore, new varieties of grapes are especially easily created. Around the world, there may be as many as 1,000 varieties of Vinifera cultivated today. And interestingly, the Pinot family of grape varieties is even more mutable than other cultivated varieties.

There's another interesting change that took place when grapes were first cultivated. Wild grape plants have a gender; that is, they usually have only male or female flowers on any given plant -- not both. But this situation creates problems for the grower: because only the female plants produce fruit, half of all the plants (the males) are barren. You can't just tear out all the pollen-producing males, however, because without them, the females won't be pollinated, and you'll get no fruit at all. But a small percentage of wild plants, known as hermaphrodites, have both male and female flowers. Over time, growers selected and favored these plants, and today's cultivated varieties are all hermaphrodites, so every vine produces fruit.

So, we can see that because of certain key botanical traits, the grape is particularly adaptable, and its juice is especially well-suited to making wine. We believe that cultivation of grapes and the production of wine may have begun at least 10,000 years ago. What happened next? How did Vinifera vines travel from the prehistoric environs of Soviet Georgia to the great vineyards of Europe, and eventually, to the newer wine regions of the world? In coming months, I'll delve into some of these questions, and many others... Please join me.

To e-mail Simon - sgruber@winephilosopher.com

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