The Kitchen Table

WINE ‘Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, make the sage frolic, and the serious smile’ according to Homer’s Odyssey.

History is full of mentions of civilizations like the Egyptians and the Phoenicians making a wine-like substance from fermenting grapes. Around 1200BC, when the Phoenicians started to trade across the Mediterranean to the Middle East, Greece and Italy, they brought their wine with them. As the Greeks began to colonize more land, so they planted their grape vines and perfected their craft. By the time the Romans conquered the Greeks, they’d adopted wine into their culture; as the Roman Empire adopted the Catholic Church, so the knowledge of wine grew and spread across Europe, reaching the New World with the Conquistadors by the 15th century. The rest, as they say, is history, but travelers and adventurers continued to bring and plant vines, and a global industry was created. In fact, the only continent that doesn’t now grow grapes is Antarctica.

France produces a huge range of different wines due to its wide range of climates. From the cool, northerly Champagne region producing delicious, dry bubbles, to the continental climate of Burgundy (now merged with its eastern neighbor, Franche-Comté); the fresh Atlantic coastline of Bordeaux, down to the dry southeastern Rhône-Alpes, and the Mediterranean heat of Provence and the Languedoc (now joined by Midi-Pyrénées) producing delicious Provencal rosés, the French will continue to be the world’s largest wine producer.

Dating back to ancient Roman times and mostly situated in the Rhine regions, vineyards in Germany produce high quality wines, mainly the aromatic white Reisling.

In Italy, where ‘il vino fa buon sangue’, which literally means ‘good wine makes good blood’, the ancient vineyards are home to over 2,000 grape varieties. Each region has its own very distinct style of wine; elegant Brunello and Chianti from Tuscany, Piedmont’s ‘King of Wines’, Barolo, and the vastly popular Prosecco from Veneto.

From being more well known for its fortified wines: Port and Madeira, and the fresh, green Vinho Verde of the cool northwest, the terraced vineyards of the Douro valley in Portugal have come to the fore with their incredible rich, ripe reds.

As varied as the landscape and climate, Spain produces a huge diversity of wines: from Tempranillo, famous for producing the deep, ruby Rioja to citrussy, white Albariño.

As one of the oldest wine producing countries in the world, Greece’s wine industry has stayed surprisingly small, although Greek wines are slowly beginning to gain popularity. The minerally whites produced in tiny Santorini are particularly worth seeking out.

WINE AND BEER 191