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The Ancient Vine (~400AD)
Centuries ago, wine was a beverage of choice for the various ethnic groups surrounding the Mediterranean, including the Roman Empire. Rome did more to evangelize the grape than any other culture prior. Every legion, and every general seemingly had a vineyard plot somewhere around the vast expanse of the republic, and the latter empires to serve as lubrication for his displaced commands.
Roman roads can be found in the areas surrounding the first plantings in nearly every celebrated wine region today, from Beaujolais to Priorat; Bandol and the Mosel, the Romans left an imprint on the significant wine-producing escarpments throughout Europe. The grape of choice for Pax Romana historically was Muscat of Alexandria for the most part, but the cultivation of wild ancient varietals such as Pinot Noir, and Fer Servadou were also quite common, and varietal obviously varied region to region.
The wine produced in this time was pretty diabolical. Realistically, the ancients had only a minimal understanding of oxygenation, microorganisms, and sanitation. Wine was made in stone pits, stored with skins-on contact for years to prevent oxygenation; fermented with yeasts from various other plants which were used to spice the wine, and shipped in big quevri, which were centuries away from airtight. This often created a dramatic angel’s share; loss of fill level, and increased concentration of flavor. Due to extended maceration periods, high alcohol concentration, and presence acetobacter wines were cut with water.
Pliny the Elder and others commentated on how truly repulsive some of the imported wines were, and provided ideal ratios for water cutting. Poor water quality often meant people would consume water that had been run off discarded grape skins, adding small amounts of alcohol in an attempt to kill the various spores before consumption. In cold regions, like the Mosel, wine was consumed the winter just after harvest. Romans served warm like tea, and spices and herbs were added, which is where we take the Christmas tradition of spiced wine.
The Ecclesiastical Commune (700AD - 1400)
It would not be long before the Roman collapse, though the empire would live on in name and religion for centuries to come. The Roman Catholic church, in an attempt to give young men unbiblical ecclesiastical purpose, set about establishing monastic orders throughout Europe; the various orders of which seemed disorganized in doctrine and theology: which is typical Catholic practice, despite having essentially an all-knowing godhead at the helm.
These fraternal orders, like the Cistercians, and Benedictines, inevitably found themselves quite bored. As it turns out, there’s not much to do when the local peasantry finances your entire existence with their various indulgences. They spent their time, for the most part, scientifically delineating parcels around Europe to find the most apt communion wines. On the Côte d’Or, the monks of Abbaye Cîteaux and Abbaye St.-Vivant named nearly every climat of land, and chose the grape that each one was most suitable for over centuries of experimentation.
The general theology at the time was broadly ecclesiastical, and this benefited wine quality to an extreme. An ecclesiastical worldview is that in which a dedicated Christian servant seeks to glorify the name of God by performing the toil given him by God using his gifts to the best of his ability: this gives believer a sense of purpose, and honors the submission to God required by the created order. It further demonstrates to others the fruit of the belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. This theology gave rise to both the scientific method, and the often more intellectual concept of Terroir.
In Priorat and the Mosel, this situation was very similar. Every area fit for vines was planted with them, and given a special name. The wines were enjoyed with communion and privately by the monks themselves. There began to become a vast surplus, and storage became far more available. Wines could make their way into the hands of the ruling elite on a broader scale.
The Barrel (1400 - 1600)
One of the major developments to come from the seventeenth century was the advent of the barrel, which was created to help store shipboard goods for their various journeys abroad. By the sixteen-hundreds it was in use sporadically by region as a way to store wine. With an impending wine surplus, and a desire for revenue by the languishing fraternal orders of the second estate, wine began to be sold by the barrel to the noble classes.
Cooperages sprung up all over France, and barrel sizes were standardized throughout the regions. It wasn’t long before customers of these barrel-laden wines began to take note and covet the flavors imparted by the storage vessels themselves. Burgundy and Bordeaux pioneered the use of Barrique and Tonneaux, which were all metrics for purchase in much the same way as the 750mL bottle is today. These flavors became a staple of France, and became a widespread trend traveling as far as Rioja to become a requirement for that region.
Oak added new aromas of vanilla, chocolate and espresso to the wine. The noble classes were thrilled with many of the various wines now available. This bolstered regional reputations, and formed the markets on which regions would rely. Russians took a liking to sweet Champagne which could be shipped via barrel through the Black Sea. The English moved their Claret from Libournais to Southhampton, and the Dutch found themselves so drawn to Vouvray they drained the Médoc to supply much the same. The Burgundians finally developed inroads to Avignon, Paris, and Lyon, giving the French something to write home about, not that it was very far away.
The Noble Classes (1600 - 1789)
The noble classes themselves were not satisfied purchasing limited wines from the church, and around the advent of the barrel, began instead to buy landholdings with vineyards for an endless supply of their favorites. Some of the most reputable plots were sold off during this period including Romanée-Conti, then called Cru du Clos, and ended up in the hands of nobility, who would, in term, sell their surplus to other elites.
Wines were shipped abroad to various places, and were also given as gifts to noblemen in other countries, sometimes in place of a spouse for their progeny. Tastes began to develop amongst societies elite, and nobility developed a palette for their favorite regions, which were often not very close by.
Within the latter years of wine’s transport, some came into the hands of the lower classes and burgeoning middle-class as well. Wine soon began to be sold more redisently to beer drinkers. This resulted in cheaper-fare wines for the lay person, and a more amicable palette for the nouveau riche, who had begun financing a lot of the nobility’s frivolous expenses and wars. As this continued, this new class of bankers, industrialists, and jewelers became even wealthier, and some were able to purchase their favorite estates and parcels as well.
The advent of the bottle brought about incredible change in the world of wine. Wines in colder regions often had fermentations paused by the severely cold weather. Yeast can only ferment sugar at ideal temperatures within the sixties to seventies. When the temperature begins plunging, they lie dormant. This resulted in fermentation holds that left wines with bubbles when fermentation was reactivated in the bottle. Allegedly it was Dom Perrignon who first noted and fabricated wines intentionally like this, though more than likely, this science due to a much younger keen eye for taste. Nevertheless, Nicole Ponsardin, another wealthy commoner, sometimes called Veuve Cliquot, created riddling: stirring leftover sediment by twisting bottles forty-five degrees. This allowed for clarity, fine color, and silky texture to be proudly displayed in the newly invented wine-specific clear glasswares.
The Revolution (1789 - 1855)
The end of the seventeen-hundreds brought about great change in Europe, including two revolutions. One thing that hadn’t changed, was a love for wine. Though the wines of then are in some ways far different from those of today. People of the last centuries generally enjoyed wines that were far sweeter, valuing residual sugar in their wines because it was rare, authentic and challenging to produce in the very chilly climate.
Certain wines around France had begun to garner attention and praise from folks around the world, and vineyards were becoming staples, and fetching hefty price tags, changing hands more frequently between royal estates. The most astute estates were written about by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and other Francophiles of the time.
By the time the revolution had set in, the vast majority of fine wine consumers, vineyard owners, and remaining clergymen had been executed by the revolutionaries. The vineyards had to be auctioned off, changing hands once again, and falling into the mitts of the former upper-middle class banking establishment. General Napoleon had taken the reigns of the new French Republic, and ushered in a series of inheritance laws which bound the new vignerons to equally pass down their landholdings among their progeny.
Some regions like Burgundy, took this law literally, opting to split their landholdings up vine for vine, leaving some descendants with only a few vines in any village. This was not enough to make wine in some cases under their shared labels, so winegrowers were beholden to larger family-owned negotiates, who would buy their fruit, blend it with the fruit of others, and sell it under their own label.
In Bordeaux, things were done far more sensibly. This was a far wealthier, and more exported region - so they decided to divide the estates into stocks, and progeny would be given equal share of the stock in the Estate. This system kept the estates in one piece under historic and identifiable names. Wines were barreled and sold to mostly Anglo-Irish negociantes for distribution abroad. These negociantes would also bottle the wines as single-estate bottling, and generally they would inscribe the estate’s name on the bottle, attending to the French sense of place that is so important.
The Classifications (1855 - 1870)
A penchant for dry wines, specifically red ones, had swept the continent after a rung of poor vintages by the Mosel and Loire Valleys, leading some to wonder if it was even possible to make sweet wines with declining temperatures. This had been building for quite some time, and the most well known regions were the ones winning all of the prizes towards the close of the eighteen-hundreds.
Fontanafredda Estate had been crowned victor in an 1892 contest placing Piedmont on the world stage of fine wine, and Bordeaux was sweeping the board everywhere. The wines of Hunter Valley had come into their own as well, and people were beginning to look to Sauternes to satisfy their sweet tooth. Inhibited by a lack of quality in their product, the reliance on negociantes set the Burgundian winemakers back quite a bit in terms of mystique, but this wouldn’t last long.
With an increase in popularity for the wines of Bordeaux, Napoleon III, leader of the new republic, saw an opportunity to market these wines in simpler way for the world stage: by price. Wines of were organized into several different quality tiers based on how much the bottles were fetching. First Growths, or Premiers Grands Crus, were the top tier, originally encompassing only four estates: Château Haut-Brion, Château Lafite-Rothschild, Château Margaux, and Château Latour. These would stand as the finest Château in Bordeaux until 1973 when Château Mouton-Rothschild would be unscrupulously added at the behest of Baron Philippe de Rothschild - a move hotly opposed by family at Château Lafite.
Just prior, Louis Pasteur of Jura had formed the basis for microbiology, shedding light on the unknown organisms that make wine, wine. He discovered yeast, and this had helped the winemakers of Champagne refine their craft more scientifically, enabling them to create consistent style year-to-year. It also shaped a future of more steady wine vintages around France and Germany.
The Louse (1870 - 1917)
Things were looking up for French wine, when a plague from America arrived, not by rodents, but by vine itself. Trade markets had opened up in Vienna and Frankfurt, importing frost-resistant hybrids which were being developed in Europe and north America. Illegally transporting agricultural material was rampant, and lucrative. Vine growers were planting all sorts of easy-care vines and purchasing them in markets throughout Europe. What we know of as Zinfandel in America, arrived on our shores via Vienna from a vine called Tribadrag in Croatia. Disaster was imminent.
It struck in the late eighteen hundreds when a vintner in the northern Rhône appellation of Saint Joseph discovered rot on his vine’s roots. Phylloxera is a bug that attacks the roots of vines in almost any soils except volcanic, or highly inorganic parcels. Today, there’re a multitude of protections which surround the transport of vine cuttings. In America, it can take the Department of Agriculture ten years to release a cutting.
The vineyards of Europe were depleted by three quarters their usual yield. Only a few places were able to continue producing grapes, and soon they too succumbed to the scourge. Mount Etna was one of the few survivors, as were some old Californian vines. Vintners tried flooding, pulling and burning the louse to no avail. The solution took years to dream up: in a process called grafting, vignerons were able to stitch vinifera varietals to phylloxera-resistant root stock and by then nearly every region needed to be totally replanted. For some, this took almost fifty years.
There was a shortage of fine wine in this period, and intelligent counterfeiters had figured to relabel mass-produced wines with the names more famous regions, thus souring the reputation of said region and flooding the market with crap wine. Growers associations responded by creating rules and regulations, and mapping out crude production zones. The first to establish these protections was Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
The War (1917 - 1936)
World War I broke out in 1917, and further destroyed more plantings in the fighting. Champagne was predictably badly affected, as was Alsace and the Mosel. Thousands of young men want off to war, leaving vineyards largely abandoned in some cases. Women and children were forced to care for the vineyards amongst the backdrop of uncertainty, and a scouring infestation of Phylloxera.
Many men did not survive to return to their vineyards, and a lot of landholdings were left behind. Some once delightful wine-producing areas of the Mosel were left abandoned, and then sold off for other crops in the years after the war. The women that were left tending vineyards did not have the resources or knowledge to combat Phylloxera, and this lead a lot of fine wine production soils return to the earth.
The rise of fascism in Germany and Italy was accompanied by a general disdain for alcoholic consumption and in both of these countries, vine growers were in some cases paid money to pull their vines and grow wheat, or beans instead. They readily did so in Piedmont and Tuscany where making a living growing wine was becoming unfeasible considering the cost of replanting on new vine stock.
In America, things were worse. Feminists, after having just been awarded the right to vote, promptly removed the darts from their mouths which empowered them so, and managed to sway the public towards prohibition. Only medicinal, and communion wine was able to be produced. A lot of California wineries switched to bottling only canned grape juice, which was sold with labels warning customers not to add yeast or suffer the penalty of the law. People did anyways.
This lapse in judgement resulted in an explosion of organized crime, public drunkenness, unsanitary speakeasies, sexual libertinism, and most egregiously, a quick fix. Cocktails became all of the rage, as people wanted a little bit to go a long way, considering the cost and risk of getting ahold of the stuff in the first place. Fine alcohols were replaced by poorly-made, cheap, dangerous liqueurs made in repulsive labs, and hidden bunkers, then sold at exorbitantly high prices.
Death skyrocketed in major metropolitan areas, and territory wars resulted in bloody streets and executed journalists. Gun-running, extortion, illegal drug trafficking became part of lucrative endeavors perpetrated by federal authorities, and mobsters alike. Sound familiar? Fortunately, the amazing three-tier system has totally solved all of these problems and there’s no racketeering, price-gouging, or large Italian families in the alcohol trade at all. Can I get a chuckle, at least..?
The Appellations (1936 - 1939)
This system was established in 1936 by the French Government and various growers associations from across the country, as a set of rules by which all growers must succumb to in order to label wines with village names, Lieux-dits, and regional names. The system codifies the concept of Terroir permanently - allowing regions to finalize and modify their regional style with the progress of tradition.
This system was groundbreaking at the time and set the stage for protections that would be enacted in nearly every major wine region across the world to some extent. Though rules have changed over the last eighty years, some appellations have become less strict, others have added rules, and others still have been added altogether. The system was set up to model the restrictions put in place by Châteauneuf years earlier.
Every appellation comes with a series of ledgers full of guidelines which dictate yields, growing areas, grape varietals, when to pick, wine styles, time in barrel, and even release dates. Some, like those of Burgundy, are stricter than others. Wines must be submitted to the authorities for color testing, and a tasting panel. Though the system began in 1936, most of the regulations weren’t fully adopted until 1947 due to the Nazi occupation of France.
The Marshall Plan (1947 - 1970)
The Marshall plan input thousands of dollars into France, Italy and Germany helping to reconstruct these countries using American capital and corporations. It’s why Europe has so many modernist examples of architecture. It also helped to reinvigorate some of the more rural communities, some of whose men had returned home from war, others had perished, and the land was abandoned, perhaps only to be sold again decades later.
It also lead to an uprise of Industry. Companies like Fiat, Bosch and Lancôme achieved incredible strides in technology at this time and built international reputations. This economic boom allowed the agrochemical manufacturers to target countryside family winemakers and cooperatives with an ultimatum: use our product, or your vineyard will fall victim to powdery mildew and Pierce’s disease as they had in the decades prior.
Humble vignerons happily obliged, littering their vineyards in toxic chemicals, just for the peace of mind of not having to return to the low yield of prior decades. Most vine growers at this time of reconstruction were simply that, vine growers. They relied on large cooperatives or negociantes to buy their grapes. They were humble farmers of other crops too, grapes just being one of the more lucrative. Many did not have money to pout food on the table and cooperatives tended to rely on quantity, not quality to purchase.
Cooperatives did little for wine quality during this time, and the American market during the fifties was still hung up on spirits as they had been in decades past. During this time, however, we see ambitious new generations of winemakers buying up abandoned vines in California, hoping to sell their wine across the US. Robert Mondavi established his new winery after a dispute with his family. A lot of young pioneering winemakers at this time had acquired a hankering for European wines that they’d tasted during the war, and brought this passion home with them.
The International Style (1970 - 2005)
The 1959 vintage in Burgundy marked a fantastic year for the region, and after the frosts in Libournais during in 1957, the right bank began releasing their new vintages. Capital was still flowing to wineries, and revitalization of many of the Bordeaux Château that had fallen into disrepair had begun. All new cellars had been completed for some neglected houses, and a lot of vignerons in France were doing quite well for themselves, waving goodbye to the years of turmoil of ages past, and fellow to the higher bottle prices.
Julia Child spread the art of French cuisine throughout America, and Americans were beginning to revive their palette for French wines, to compliment their new recipes. Finally, the American import market was opening up in a relatively similar capacity to the English market. Finer wines were being produced, and a series of good vintages in the sixties began to become available to those curious.
After playing around with French grapes Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot, the Italian Government classified the Bolgheri IGT, making wines like Sassicaia and Tignanello more palatable than table wine. A series of competitions in the seventies had lead to major successes for these bolder, weightier styles of wine with their intricate new oak, and ripe plumb fruit. Even Barolo was taking note.
Stephen Spurrier, an English wine clerk in Paris, was the only English speaking wine merchant in the whole city. He began receiving bottles of wine on visits from Americans in the early seventies, and fancied the style of Cabernet Sauvignon so much, that he boldly invited growers from across France and California to a blind tasting competition, with a panel of French judges. The Californian wines swept, leaving the French to mumble about terroir, and demand a rematch. That day came in 2007, thirty years later, with the same bottles of wine, now aged, and the Californian wines remarkably still won! This affair was called the Judgement of Paris.
This permanently altered the wine world, and gave critics like Baltimore Wine Advocate founder, Robert Parker a major role in the industry. The new International style of wine was born, and it was big, bold Cabernet Sauvignon, and oaky, rich Chardonnay. This period was marked by new cellars and winemaking equipment. Short, violent maceration in rotary fermenters were common, and years in loads of new oak, with malolactic fermentation performed at ultra high temperatures killing any green flavors or nuance.
These grapes were planted everywhere. Vine growers all over had started their own labels, ditching the cooperatives and stating to make a name for themselves with this style of wine, and many were quite successful. Robert Parker Brought the bold wines of the Northern and Southern Rhône to American’s attention, specifically those of incredible producer, Marcel Guigal, and Americans flocked to French and the new Italian styles of wine which had benefited from the new winemaking prowess.
French winemakers became so hands-off, that they had plenty of time to do consulting work abroad, generally in South America, and Australia, where the harvest is during February, their down time in France. This new breed of winemaker brought the winemaking of Europe down under, and often forced winemakers hands off their product entirely. They opted instead to harvest and vinify totally their own way. Today, there are a multitude of French-owned wineries all over South America, as the French were so successful with this Flying Vigneron concept, they found it more profitable to buy the winery entirely.
The New Traditional (2005 - Present)
Today, we see a total shift in the way people view wine. This change started to take place in the late 2000’s and was mostly the fault of Barolo, whose growers thought their wines now lacked the regional character they’d once had. They were right. The market had grown tired of the rich, jammy, over-naked homogenous wines of the past, and a lot of consumers and wine professionals were looking for Vini Veri, true wines - wines that express their growers intentions, and their sense of place. Wines that are grown with tradition and purpose. Wines that are made with local grapes, and have their own unique character.
Part of this came from a shift towards a reapplication for lighter wine varietals, specifically Pinot Noir, which, in all reality, was too finicky to be a land-grubbing conquistador like its cousin Chardonnay. Some would say that this movement sprung about as a result of the fine wine misgivings during the collection craze which led to the auction house scandals at Christie's, and Acker, then subsequant arrest of Rudy Kurniawan - though he was just one of many: people were drawn to seek smaller, family-owned regional wineries, making fine wine at more affordbale prices.
Some would argue that this was specifically wrought on by the film Sideways (2004) and sentiment like it, where in several scenes, Miles, the lead character exclaims in expletives his detest for Merlot, a grape that represented the more offensive aspects of the International Style of winemaking. Today, this phenomena is sometimes referred to as the Sideways Effect, and regardless of its pull of consumers towards finer wines, it certainly created more demand for Pinot Noir.
All of this contempt for much the same, has bred a new style of wine. One that ages well, but can be drunk young. A style that is nuanced, yet refined. A style that is structured, yet perfumed. A style that is quintessentially colloquial, yet approachable for many palettes. But seemingly most importantly, is sustainable and organic. The Vini Veri movement is pioneered by small scale wineries like Elizabeth Foradori, using grapes like Nosiola, and Teroldego. It’s pioneered by others like Maria Teresa Mascarello in Barolo, Le Ripi in Montalcino, Luigi Tecce in Taurasi among many others. Their mission is to make drinkable, beautiful wines; displays of regional passion that are as natural, and kind to the Earth as they are to your palette.
Though the trend of natural vineyard hood trickles back to Nicolas Joly and beyond, we see plenty of vintners today taking note and adapting their wineries to be safer to their own soils. The pioneers of the natural wine movement themselves and their soils were often victims of chemicals in ages past, so it's nice to see wineries move toward a more natural approach to winemaking: using less additives, irrigation, and fertilizers. Who knows what the next trend in wine will be, but honestly, I’m happy that we’re here, and able to enjoy some incredible, diverse wines.
That's All,
~K