Why is there something rather than nothing? Why are you yourself and not someone else? Where do babies come from? Such good questions! Big thanks to all of you who send these, and many like them, to us in the mail every week. They’re potent reminders that from time to time it’s necessary to turn our attention to questions of fundamental — even existential — importance. Such as . . .
What is wine, anyway? Wine is nothing more than the fermented juice of fruit. It just so happens that only grapes develop sugars in sufficient quantity to result in alcohol levels that make a stable beverage. In other words, a drink that can, under the right circumstances, remain in sound, drinkable condition for lengthy periods of time, grow more interesting and pleasing with age, and receive a big score from a wine writer. Today, wine commonly means grape wine.
What made wine, as we know it, possible? (1) The invention of water-tight ceramic pottery and (2) wine writers.
How old is wine? We can be certain from the analysis of residues found in terra cotta vessels that grape wine was being made in the Caucasus region (today, Georgia, Armenia, Northern Iran and Eastern Turkey, roughly) in the sixth millennium BCE.
Evidence of wine made with sources other than, or in addition to, grapes has been found in China from an even earlier era. The first wine and the first wine writers are thought to have emerged with near simultaneity.
Which came first, beer or wine? When the skin of a grape is broken (accidentally or intentionally), its sugars become available to airborne yeasts and fermentation is spontaneous and immediate. By contrast, starches in the grain that is the base material of beer must be converted to sugars by human agency (a process known as mashing) before fermentation can get a move on. From this, we can deduce that Chardonnay had quite a head start on Miller Lite. It also explains why beer writers were so late to the game.
What is the earliest known toast? According to the book of Genesis (or possibly Mark Twain) it is “Chin chin, Eve old girl!”
Why drink wine? Perhaps Goethe said it best: “Wine rejoices the heart of man, and joy is the mother of all virtues.”