Wine, Ahh Glorious Wine – So Many Bottles, So Little Time

The driving has been completed and the camp is in place and the camp is up…now it’s time to gather your family and friends around the table and enjoy the setting sun with an ice cold glass of wine. Then, toast to a good day wine dates.

The lifestyle of living full-time in an RV can be viewed by some as uninspiring however, those who have the luxury of living it are aware that it is our freedom and the multitude of acquaintances we make throughout the journey who turn into lifelong acquaintances, and the ease that we can live our lives that makes us one of the fortunate ones and blessed. And a glass of wine only makes it even more sweeter.

“Drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life’s most civilized pleasures”

–Michael Broadbent

There are many varieties, flavors and colors of wine available today…from the inexpensive to the over-the-top only-to-be-collected-and-bragged-about wines for your wine collection. For those of us who haven’t gone to the supermarket to purchase dinner? And then wandered through the aisle of wine and stumbled across an intriguing the label of a bottle wine that you’ve decided to take home to accompany your dinner.

Interesting Wine Trivia

The world has 20 million acres of grapevines that are planted across the globe.

The grapes are the most popular of all fruits grown and the top in terms of acreage.

There are over 10,000 kinds of grapes for wine all over the world.

(Wow…that’s an awful lot of wine that could be made.)

There’s at least one winery that is commercial in every one of the fifty US states and California, New York and Florida the top three states for wine consumption. What are you staying in this evening? There are around 847 wineries located in California and 232 of them are located in Napa. As of 2000 Americans have spent $20 billion buying wine. Seventy-two percent was used for California wine.

A Little Wine History

The history of wine goes back hundreds of thousands decades and has been connected to the history of food, agriculture civilization, civilisation and humanity itself. Evidence from archeology suggests that the oldest known wine production that was made from fermenting grapes, was found in the region of Mesopotamia at least 6600 BC. The area is today referred to in the name of Georgia in addition to Iran. Evidence of the first European wine-making is found in archaeological sites in Macedonia dating back to 6,500 years back.

In Egypt wine was introduced as a an integral part of the recorded history and played a significant role in the ancient world of ritual. Evidence of wild wine dating back to the second millennium and the first millennium BC were also discovered in China.

It is not known much about the beginnings of wine. However, it is possible that earlier farmers and foragers made alcohol-based drinks from wild grapes and wild fruits. The exact location where wine was initially created is not clear. It could have occurred anyplace in the vast area which extends between North Africa to Central/South Asia in which wild grapes are grown.

A large portion of the modern wine culture stems from the practices of early Greeks. While the exact date for the introduction to wine production within the Greek Territory is unknown, some of the grapes only grown there and are identical or similar to the grapes that were grown in earlier times.

The Roman Empire had an enormous influence on the evolution of the viticulture industry. Wine was a major component of Roman diet, and the production of wine became a highly profitable business. The majority of the most important wine-producing regions of Western Europe today were established by the Romans.

Wheat and grapes were the first introduced to Latin America by Spanish Conquistadors to supply the basic needs to celebrate and during the Catholic Mass. Planting was initiated in Spanish missions, a particular grape variety became known by the name of Mission Grapes, and is still being planted in tiny quantities. Successive waves of immigrants imported French, Italian and German grapes. However, wine made is made from native grapes to the Americas is also made.

Wine from the Americas is most closely linked in Argentina, California and Chile each of which produces various varieties of wine including jug wines that are cheap to premium varieties and exclusive blends. Up until the second part in the century of 20thcentury American wines were generally by many as being inferior to European products, however it was only after the awe-inspiring American performance in the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 that New World wine began to be regarded as a worthy addition to the regions that gave wine its origins.