Brandy is Dandy, but Wine…….
Part 1
I have a long history with wine. As young lads, my brother and I were allowed to have a small amount (half a Welch’s Grape Jelly jar) of red wine at holiday dinners.
Drinking was no big deal in college (though it seemed to be a big deal for some of my classmates whose parents preached total and unforgiving abstinence). Actually wine drinking in my family has a long tradition, and this tradition is anchored in family stories involving the fruit of the vine.
The first of these involved my grandfather and his friends from the old country who monthly played poker in his small New York City apartment in the 1920’s. He assigned his son of nine, my father, the responsibility of siphoning wine from the barrel in the communal basement into a bottle and bringing it up to the card table. Either my father got the idea from the popular Laurel and Hardy or the comedy team got the idea from my father, but, as the poker night went along, my father was siphoning more of the homemade brew into his mouth than into the bottle. Late that night he staggered up the stairs and, smiling broadly, delivered an empty bottle to my grandfather who quickly erased that smile.
Wine, of course, goes back father than my Italian ancestors.
“The earliest archaeological evidence of wine yet found has been at sites in China (c. 7000 BC), Georgia (c. 6000 BC), Iran (c. 5000 BC), Greece (c. 4500 BC), and Sicily (c. 4000 BC). The earliest evidence of the production of wine has been found in Armenia (c. 4100 BC)
The oldest-known winery was discovered in the “Areni-1” cave in Vayots Dzor, Armenia. Dated to c. 4100 BC, the site contained a wine press, fermentation vats, jars, and cups.[24][25][26][27] Archaeologists also found V. vinifera seeds and vines. Commenting on the importance of the find, McGovern said, “The fact that winemaking was already so well developed in 4000 BC suggests that the technology probably goes back much earlier.”[27][28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wine
Interesting. I would think that the “ancients” would be more preoccupied with the possibilities of being plagued, pillaged, and plundered than with the processing of stimulating beverages. Then, again, perhaps putting on a buzz helped them cope with plagues, pillagers, and plunderers.
We almost lost our ability to put our own buzz on.
” Monastic orders such as the Cistercians and Benedictines preserved and innovated the art of winemaking during the Middle Ages. It is thanks to their research and indefatigable efforts we have such an elaborate winemaking technology today. One of the world’s most famous Champagnes Dom Pérignon was named after a monk. Dom Pierre Pérignon (1638-1715), an early advocate of organic wine-making, experimented with new methods, successfully improving the winemaking process. His practices and techniques are still used today.” https://www.wiine.me/blog/10-amazing-facts-about-wine/
Thank you, Dom!!!
My growth with the grape continued into my collegiate years although it may be argued that my growth was stinted by financial setbacks. My first toast was at an off campus gathering. “Salute!” No one in that particular group of celebrators knew the meaning of my toast, but they recognized the raising of the glass, so I escaped. Time for a pop quiz. (occupational hazard—I was a teacher—I assigned lots of quizzes) Match the toast with the country:
France Kampai
Italy Cheers
Denmark Salute
Chinese (Mandarin) Prost
Malta Skol
Finland A Votre Sante
Great Britain Kippis
Japan Evviva
Germany Gan Bay
Answers at the end.
I always wondered why the raising of the glass was called a “toast.”
“The term toast comes from the Roman practice of dropping a piece of burnt bread into the wine. This was done to temper some of the bad wines the Romans sometimes had to drink.”
As a lad, asked by my uncles to taste the red stuff siphoned from their basement casks, I always replied by a nodding of my head in the affirmative, even though I was usually thinking that what I was drinking was better suited for dressing my ensalade than for imbibing. I have tasted wines, especially in my penurious college days, that could have used whole loaves of burnt pumpernickel bread.
I remember one special off campus gathering hosted by a rather well-off classmate. I was invited because of my mature demeanor, my savoir-faire, and the fact that I helped him study (and pass!!!) his engineering calculus midterm. I noticed right away that I was attending an upscale party by the way the guests were holding their wine glasses by the stems, by the fact that the wine glasses had stems(as opposed to the plastic cups we retained from fast food meals, and far removed from the Welch’s Grape Jelly jars), and by the means party goers sipped the wine rather than the more customary method of chugging it. Also I observed the price tag on the Pinot Noir—$22.99!! I had, indeed, come a long way. My suave classmate proposed a toast that was more involved than my “Salute!” although I hardly remember any of it.
“’Drinking to one’s health’ came from ancient Greece. The host of dinner would take the first sip to assure his guests the wine was not poisoned.” http://www.gooseneckvineyards.com/20-fun-facts-wine/ I actually knew this historical fact from a research paper I was writing on the Socratic dialogues (my philosophy prof always told me that my study of the ancients would pay off). I carefully watched my host drain his glass to see if he keeled over.
I am interrupting this blog for a confession: As a lifelong denizen of Nerddom, I know I share with others of my ilk the great pleasures to be unveiled in the stacks of an old college library. You know how it is. The stacks in the library are dark statues closing you in and smelling of dark, deep mahogany and leather-bound books and shelf dust and the wisdom of ages. You are dusting off a tome to find a piece of evidence that will support your thesis on how Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty affected modernist literature, and the next thing you know you are engrossed in a book detailing the beer making habits of the ancient Incas. One of my really stellar college professors told me that something is only “useless information” if we choose not to use it. With that in mind, make use of the following two tidbits of research:
1) Women are more inclined to the effects of wine than men. This is partly because they have less enzymes in the stomach lining that is needed to break down alcohol simply.
2) If a husband found his wife drinking wine in the early Roman times, he was at liberty to kill her. It was forbidden that women drink wine. http://www.gooseneckvineyards.com/20-fun-facts-wine/
I am still trying to determine if early Roman husbands were upset at their wives dipping their beaks into the wine cellar or the men were afraid that their spouses would spill the beans at a social gathering.
A few weeks ago meandering along the research trail, I came across an article on “wine biases.”
“Another well-publicized double-blind taste test was conducted in 2011 by Prof. Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire. In a wine tasting experiment using 400 participants, Wiseman found that general members of the public were unable to distinguish expensive wines from inexpensive ones.[6] ‘People just could not tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine’.”[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_tasting
Things seem to become more complicated as I grow older. In college it was easy to distinguish the difference between the $22.99 Pinot Noir and my more familiar $1.99 bottle of Thundercloud Blush vintage last Tuesday at 5:30. After the latter, I threw up.
I was growing along with the grape. My connoisseur days were ahead of me. Next blog.
As promised:
France A Votre Sante!
Italy Salute!
Denmark Skol
Chinese (Mandarin) Gan Bay!
Malta Evviva!
Finland Kippis!
Great Britain Cheers!
Japan Kampai!
Germany Prost!
