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Wine has conquered the world. In 2021, global wine consumption topped 23.6 billion liters, or roughly 9,440 Olympic-size swimming pools’ worth of vino. Here are some more surprising facts about reds, whites, and rosés, from their long and illustrious history to the reasons you might want to avoid drinking wine left over from shipwrecks.
People Have Been Making Wine for Thousands of Years
Between 2007 and 2010, archaeologists excavated a cave near Areni, Armenia, which contained the remnants of an ancient winemaking operation. They unearthed a press for crushing grapes, jars for fermentation and storage, ceramic cups, and the remains of grape vines, skins, and seeds. (The organic material had been preserved by a hardened layer of sheep dung, which protected it from decay.) By analyzing a compound called malvidin, which makes grapes reddish-purple, the researchers estimated that the site was active around 4000 BCE, during the Copper Age, making it the oldest known winery. Even earlier biomolecular evidence of viniculture dates from about 6000 BCE. The oldest type of wine still made today is Commandaria, a sweet red-white dessert blend from Cyprus that dates back to 2000 BCE.
Almost All Wines Are Grown From a Single Species of Grape
The mother vine of almost all wines today is Vitis vinifera, a grape likely native to Western Asia. Over millennia, winemakers have domesticated and cross-bred the vines to create subspecies with distinct colors, flavors, and suitability to different climates. About 8,000 cultivars exist today, including well-known varieties like pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and merlot. V. vinifera vines have long been cultivated in regions with hot, dry summers and mild winters, such as Italy, Spain, and France, but the U.S., Chile, Australia, and South Africa are also major producers, among other countries.
In the 19th Century, an Insect Nearly Wiped Out France’s Wine Industry
One downside of basing a global wine industry on a single grape species is that it can be decimated by a particular disease or pest. A grape-attacking aphid called phylloxera, native to North America, was accidentally imported to France in the 1860s. Whereas indigenous American grape species had built up resistance to the pest, French winemakers had guarded the purity of their vines to ensure their wines’ high quality, which made the plants susceptible to assault from the foreign bug. As a result, phylloxera tore through French vineyards in the late 19th century and forced French winemakers to graft phylloxera-resistant American vines onto the French vines to save them.
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A Wine’s Terroir Can Be Legally Protected
The 19th-century French vintners initially resisted the plan to graft American rootstocks onto their precious vines over fears that their wines’ special flavor profile, or terroir, would suffer. “Terroir” refers to the whole environment in which the grapes are grown — soil and water characteristics, temperature, altitude, and so on — as well as the flavor and aroma that these factors impart. A wine’s terroir can be a legally protected entity in France, where the AOC system (an acronym for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) classifies wines according to their region of production and quality. It’s this system that says Champagne can come only from the Champagne region to protect its unique terroir.
California Wines Beat French Rivals in a Blind Taste Test
In a legendary event dubbed “The Judgment of Paris,” held on May 24, 1976, French wine experts preferred upstart California wines to the finest French ones in a taste test. An English wine shop owner staged the event to drum up business, and everyone assumed a French victory was a foregone conclusion. The nine experts swirled, sniffed, and sipped a variety of reds and whites, then tallied the number of points they awarded to each sample; shockingly, a cabernet sauvignon and a chardonnay from Napa Valley won out, proving that countries besides France could produce the world’s finest wines. A bottle of each winning wine is now in the Smithsonian collection.
Wine Is Often Found in Shipwrecks
Wine has been traded around the world for centuries, and the vessels transporting it have occasionally run into trouble. Today, intact bottles of wine can sometimes be located among the wreckage of sunken ships. Experts advise against drinking their contents, but some curious gastronauts can’t be dissuaded. In 2009, a hurricane disturbed the seafloor around Bermuda and revealed still-corked bottles in the wreck of a Civil War-era ship; a panel of tasters said it was “awful.” Champagne recovered from a 170-year-old shipwreck in the frigid Baltic Sea gave tasters hints of cheese and “wet hair.” Among the recent finds yet to be sampled are unopened bottles of wine from the wreck of the HMS Gloucester, which sank while carrying the future king James II of England, and bottles that went down with a British steamship after a German torpedo attack during World War I.
Interesting Facts writers have been seen in Popular Mechanics, Mental Floss, A+E Networks, and more. They’re fascinated by history, science, food, culture, and the world around them.
