Learning more about wines

For most of us, simply to say that we like a wine when we taste it is about as far as we go in using words to describe our favorite tipple. But for a ton of wine professionals out there, there’s a whole vocabulary of terms that they are intimately familiar with. And that’s where the disconnect between average drinkers and professionals occurs. Wine drinkers may ask a professional about a particular wine, and they receive an answer in words that they don’t grasp, because that’s a language that the average Joe doesn’t speak. So with that in mind, I’ve doing some sleuthing and will be sending you my findings as they come to light.

The first one I discovered was “Austere.” Now that’s a word that makes me think of my schooldays at St. Teresa’s in Liverpool, and of Teachers and Nuns that scared the living daylights out of me, with their austere and severe manner. However, when used in relation to wine, the scribes say it indicates that a wine just doesn’t taste too good, and may be harsh, or not have enough fruit flavor. Or it may be because the wine is too young, but sometimes it may have just been a poorly made batch and is not “balanced.” So instead of them using the word “austere” they could just say that the wine is a little harsh and tannic and lacking in fruit flavors. There now - didn’t that sound much better?

The birds knew

The idea of winemaking may have occurred to our alert and resourceful ancestors when they observed birds gorging themselves silly on fermented fruit and decided to see what the buzz was all about.

Wine snobs might shudder at the thought, but the first wine-tasting may have occurred when Paleolithic humans slurped the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches or crude wooden bowls.

The old woman and the wine jar

An old woman found an empty jar which had lately been full of prime old wine and which still retained the fragrancy of its former contents. She greedily placed it several times to her nose, and drawing backwards and forwards was heard to say: “Oh most delicious. How nice must the wine itself have been, when it leaves behind the the very vessel which contained so sweet a perfume."

A history lesson in wine

According to an ancient Persian fable, wine was the accidental discovery of a princess seeking to end her life with what she thought was poison. Instead, she experienced the elixir’s intoxicating effects as it released her from the anxieties of royal court life. Evolving over the centuries, grape growing and wine-making has continued to grip the human imagination, inspiring passion and ingenuity.

Archeological evidence suggests that grape cultivation and wine making began in Mesopotamia and areas surrounding the Caspian Sea sometime between 6000 and 4000 BCE. The drink was savored by royalty and priests, while commoners drank beer, mead, and ale. The ancient Egyptians, the first culture known to document the process of wine making, preserved descriptions of harvesting grapes and drinking wine on clay tablets, which have been discovered within the burial chambers of the social elite.

Wine making made its way to Greece, where it permeated all aspects of society: literature, mythology, medicine, leisure, and religion. The Romans took vine clippings from Greece back to Italy, and centers of viticulture soon developed in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the rest of Europe.

Trade routes and early explorers carried vines and grape growing treatises to Mexico, Argentina, and North Africa, and the culture of wine continues to spread around the globe today, with vines growing on every continent except Antarctica.

Wine fun

The launch of Mrs. McCartney’s Wines will now take place at Cold Creek winery in Kemah, TX from noon through 6 p.m. on Saturday June 25th. I’m really happy about this, because it was the birthplace of the idea for the wine, when Vintner David Skinner came up with the idea that we should have wines to match Mrs. McCartney’s Teas, and thus a jar was born!