This document summarizes the history of wine from ancient times to the present day. It discusses how wine was used medicinally and as a luxury good by ancient Egyptians and Greeks. It also covers the development of wine regions and appellation systems to designate origin. The document then discusses modern issues like counterfeiting, protecting consumers, and new technologies being used in winemaking.
1. To Good Health
&
Wealth
Figure 1. Château Lafite Rothschild 1988. (from expertissim)
2. When did Society's views on wine
change
• Wine was also used as a water purifier and for
medicinal purposes
• Wine throughout Medieval Times was used in
a social manner
• About 2000 years ago wine was used as a
luxury product only by the wealthy
3. Egyptians
• The Egyptians marked their wine in hieratic
labeling vintage and place
Figure 2. Menes1-6 (from tour Egypt) Figure 3. egyptian-wine-jars-louvre-paris From The Art of Bottle Poetry: Wine
4. Terroir
• Origin of wine was important to the Ancient
Greeks and they developed an appellation
system for their products
• The Greek philosopher and Scientist wrote
about the importance of grape varieties ,
mesoclimates and soil quality.
Figure 4. Bordeaux, France, Endless vineyards (From World All Details)
5. Price Point
Figure 5. Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine v. No. Billionaires (From the Liv-Ex Blog)
6. The Criminal Factor
• Counterfeit Wine
• Rip-off merchants
Figure 6 Simon-Mickleson (From New Zealand Listener)
7. Protecting the Customer
• Will people trust high end wine again?
• What measures will manufacturers
implement to protect the consumer?
• Will consumers pay more for proven authentic
products?
Figure 6. and 7. Smartphones help world's winemakers foil fraudsters (From Google Hosted News)
9. Image References
Image Reference:
Expertissim Château Lafite Rothschild 1988. Retrieved from http://en.expertissim.com/wines/chateau-lafite-rothschild-1988-o12122671.html
Jimmy Dunn (2011) Tour Egypt Retrieved from http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/menes1.htm
Bordeaux, France, Endless vineyards Retrieved from http://www.worldalldetails.com/Pictureview/3665-Bordeaux_France_Endless_vineyards.html
The Art of Bottle Poetry: Wine (2010, March 8) Retrieved from http://theartofbottledpoetry.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/wine-making-of-ancient-
egyptians/
Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine v. No. Billionaires (2012, 13 March) Retrieved from http://www.blog.liv-ex.com/2012/03/fine-wine-and-chinese-billionaires.html
Vintage wine and old tricks (2012, 16 June) Retrieved from http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/wine/vintage-wine-and-old-tricks
Mustacich Suzanne (2011, Jul 9) Smartphones help world's winemakers foil fraudsters Hosted News Retrieved from
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRPjXRxRTmPa3pyzPRwdLig-VcMA?docId=CNG.fc6f3d0f38de85bec80c4d54825557ae.d1
Owen James (2011, January 10) Earliest Known Winery Found in Armenian Cave,
National Geographic Daily News, Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110111-oldest-wine-press-making-winery-armenia-
science-ucla/
Tukia Annabelle (2012, February 19) Wine lab revolutionises industry,
3 News, Retrieved from http://www.3news.co.nz/Wine-lab-revolutionises-industry/tabid/420/articleID/243401/Default.aspx
Flancy Mike (2012, June 16) Six-foot, half-ton robot will protect your wine and terrify tipsy guests, Digital Trends, Retrieved From
http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/six-foot-half-ton-robot-will-protect-your-wine-and-terrify-tipsy-guests/
10. References
References:
Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine v. No. Billionaires (2012, 13 March) Retrieved from http://www.blog.liv-ex.com/2012/03/fine-wine-and-chinese-billionaires.html
Dunlop, Tessa. (13 March, 2012) China's faux Bordeaux stirs wine market. Stuff. Retrieved From http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/6565275/Chinas-faux-
Bordeaux-stirs-wine-market
Ancient Egyptians used wine as medicine. (13 Apr 2009) The Telegraph Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/5148120/Ancient-Egyptians-used-wine-as-medicine.html
Haas, Robert. (October 2008) Terroir, Then and Now Retrieved from http://tablascreek.typepad.com/tablas/2008/10/terroir-then-an.html
Tutankhamun wine mystery is solved. (16 March, 2004) The Telegraph. Retrieved From
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/1457001/Tutankhamun-wine-mystery-is-solved.html
Greek wine (5 July, 2012) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wine
Mustacich Suzanne (AFP) (2011, Jul 9) Smartphones help world's winemakers foil fraudsters Hosted News Retrieved from
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRPjXRxRTmPa3pyzPRwdLig-VcMA?docId=CNG.fc6f3d0f38de85bec80c4d54825557ae.d1
Gay, Edward. (13 August, 2012) Merchant jailed over wine scams. The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved From
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10813061
Cooper, Michael (16 June, 2012) Vintage wine and old tricks New Zealand Listener. Retrieved From http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/wine/vintage-wine-
and-old-tricks/
EIT Online. History of Wine and the Vine. Retrieved on 8 August 2012
http://eitonline.eit.ac.nz/pluginfile.php/176763/mod_resource/content/0/Week_02/HistoryofWineAndTheVine.pdf
Notes de l'éditeur
In this presentation is to discuss how wine has developed from being a food staple and been used as a necessary part of our diet and into a high end collectors item where people pay large amounts of money for product based on age, terrior and label but may never consume the product. Why it is kept on the shelve in cellars and what this could mean for the future of the wine industry. I would also like to discuss price point.
Historically wine was used as a means to purify and reduce pollutants in drinking water, it has also been used for its medicinal purposes with it being thought to contain antiseptic properties. Communities during the Medieval time used wine is a social manner but it became a necessity to purify polluted drinking water rather than for just having a good time or socialising with. During the start of the common era (AD) the lower class citizens and the army were resigned to drink Posca (Vinegar mixed with water) or Lorca (a thin wine made from soaking the pressed skins in water and fermenting the liquid) while the wealthy upper class enjoyed drink a finer product “first growth” or “Grand Cru”. So it is here we can begin to see the wealthy valuing quality wine and enjoying the product for its quality over practicality.
The Egyptians may have been the first wine producers to record the vintage information. The Egyptian people appreciated the importance of the idea of area, estate and vintage as this was discovered on 36 jars of wine in Tutankhamen’s tomb with a docket that gave the date, place and vintage of the wine. It was also common practice for Egyptian to mark the jars with a stamp specifying the estate and vintage
As wine moves onto the second half of the second millennium BC wine had become an important part of Greek culture. The Ancient Greeks were developing an appellation system for their products to ensure the origins were authenticated. In 4 BC Philosopher and Scientist Theophrastus wrote about the importance of the interrelation between grape varieties, mesoclimate and and soil quality. During the medieval times northern European countries were paying high prices for wine from Greek ports such as Crete and Monemvasia. By the end of the Roman Empire the regions producing wine that centralised the European wine industry consisted of the Wachau, Mosel, Rheingau, Pfalz, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, and La Rioja. The boundaries of fine wine growing regions in France have existed for over a millennium. Society’s was beginning to value terroir, appelation and estate much more than ever before.
The graph shown demonstrates that as the number of billionaire’s changes so to does the consumption of fine wine. Because the price of wine is relative of a persons income, for example if a consumer earn $20 million per annum that brings their daily income to $54,794.52 lets say this person works an average day of 8hrs, they are earning $6849.31 per hour or $114.15 per minute so for this person to buy a bottle of Chateau Latour 2000 for $5,687.10 it would take them approximately 50 minutes work to pay for that bottle. Now if the person on the average weekly wage of approximately $650 in New Zealand were to buy that same bottle it would take 8.7 weeks at 40 hours per week or approximately 348 hours. It makes sense to me that if someone is earning that amount of money then to buy top end fine wine is better value than buying lower end supermarket wine, and that the wealthy are getting better value wine per hour of their life. However a lot of the expensive older vintages may never get drunk as the wine was only ever purchased as a trophy bottle to make a wine collection more valuable when showing off to friends and family.
The criminal world appear to be well aware of the fact that a lot of these high end bottles go for very high prices and are often cellared for long periods of time if they get drunk at all. An example is with Bordeaux wines and while no one is 100% sure of the numbers there appears to be a lot more high end Bordeaux sold than the manufactures themselves are making. This is proving to be a major problem for the auction houses and the manufactures themselves as more buyers are becoming conscience of this problem. The purchaser has very little means to authenticate wine without drinking and even then without a another bottle to cross-reference it to could they be sure. Also in a recent case close to home a wine merchant Simon Gregory Mickleson was sentence 2 years and 4 months after pleading guilty to 16 charge. To summarize what this sophisticated criminal got up to, he faked vintages by doctoring labels, stole credit cards, took cash for wine he didn't have, and sold historic chateau cases he didn't own for thousands of dollars,a scam with a value of $1.3m. At the same time another merchant in the USA was arrested for a $1.3m scam,Kurniawan was caught by Laurent Ponsot aproducer from Morey-St-Denis, in Burgundy, France. At a New York auction in 2008, Ponsot watched as vintages of his Clos St-Denis from 1959 and 1945, supplied by Kurniawan, were ready to go under the hammer. The wine had not been made before the 1980s. Kurniawan blustered: “It’s Burgundy – shit happens.”
The trust factor in these top end wine is certainly dwindling as these criminal scammers become more widely talked about, but producers who are anxious to retain the trust in their product are coming up with new ways for buyers to authenticate their wine at the point of sale. Canadian Ice Wine producer Charles Pillitteri has been looking for ways to protect his customers at point of sale since he discovered fake bottles of his wine in Taiwan in 1998. Working through many different options he has found the solution in a silver bubble topped seal that is impossible to copy. Prooftag has developed a system where a customer with an iPhone can scan a datamatrix code and be taken to a website that shows them a photo of the bubble pattern for the bottle they are looking at. There are also other methods being developed to prevent wine fraud and only time and consumers with filter out the ones that don’t work or work better.
So ultimately wine was produced as a practical way of preserving the grape juice, purifying drinking water and providing antiseptic medical properties. But as wine improved over time with better production technics and better viticulture practices society start to put a higher price on the finer products. Society also began to see that some areas were better at producing a higher quality or certain styles of wine that was preferred so appellation systems and terrior were developed.Today the spectrum is massive with incredibly good wine being had at a very reasonable price but the higher value is still in the proven growing areas that were developed many years ago. Crime is adding costs to the wine industry in the way of mistrust and development of fail safe product to protect the customer at point of sale. New world wine has been on the scene now for only a short while and the world consumers are lapping up the new fresh approach to wine making and we are seeing these areas develop into strong valuable producers.Further down the track I think wine is going to remain a valuable collectable commodity, however society will continue to embrace wine a a part of the meal. Criminals will continue to rip-off consumers and producers with continue to fight. I think the biggest change will be as the new wine producers gain some credible vintages; top end collectors with start to pay more for these products.Wine has and always will be a food, part of the meal, part of hospitality, scientists and dieticians will continue to look for issues good and bad relating to wine consumption and with modern science and technology who knows that glass of red might be doctors orders.
Image Reference: Expertissim Château Lafite Rothschild 1988. Retrieved from http://en.expertissim.com/wines/chateau-lafite-rothschild-1988-o12122671.html Jimmy Dunn (2011) Tour Egypt Retrieved from http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/menes1.htm Bordeaux, France, Endless vineyards Retrieved from http://www.worldalldetails.com/Pictureview/3665-Bordeaux_France_Endless_vineyards.html The Art of Bottle Poetry: Wine (2010, March 8) Retrieved from http://theartofbottledpoetry.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/wine-making-of-ancient-egyptians/ Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine v. No. Billionaires (2012, 13 March) Retrieved from http://www.blog.liv-ex.com/2012/03/fine-wine-and-chinese-billionaires.html Vintage wine and old tricks (2012, 16 June) Retrieved from http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/wine/vintage-wine-and-old-tricks Mustacich Suzanne (2011, Jul 9) Smartphones help world's winemakers foil fraudsters Hosted News Retrieved from http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRPjXRxRTmPa3pyzPRwdLig-VcMA?docId=CNG.fc6f3d0f38de85bec80c4d54825557ae.d1 Owen James (2011, January 10) Earliest Known Winery Found in Armenian Cave, National Geographic Daily News, Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110111-oldest-wine-press-making-winery-armenia-science-ucla/ Tukia Annabelle (2012, February 19) Wine lab revolutionises industry, 3 News, Retrieved from http://www.3news.co.nz/Wine-lab-revolutionises-industry/tabid/420/articleID/243401/Default.aspx Flancy Mike (2012, June 16) Six-foot, half-ton robot will protect your wine and terrify tipsy guests, Digital Trends, Retrieved From http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/six-foot-half-ton-robot-will-protect-your-wine-and-terrify-tipsy-guests/
References: Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine v. No. Billionaires (2012, 13 March) Retrieved from http://www.blog.liv-ex.com/2012/03/fine-wine-and-chinese-billionaires.html Dunlop, Tessa. (13 March, 2012) China's faux Bordeaux stirs wine market. Stuff. Retrieved From http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/6565275/Chinas-faux-Bordeaux-stirs-wine-market Ancient Egyptians used wine as medicine. (13 Apr 2009) The Telegraph Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5148120/Ancient-Egyptians-used-wine-as-medicine.html Haas, Robert. (October 2008) Terroir, Then and Now Retrieved from http://tablascreek.typepad.com/tablas/2008/10/terroir-then-an.html Tutankhamun wine mystery is solved. (16 March, 2004) The Telegraph. Retrieved From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/1457001/Tutankhamun-wine-mystery-is-solved.html Greek wine (5 July, 2012) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wine Mustacich Suzanne (AFP) (2011, Jul 9) Smartphones help world's winemakers foil fraudsters Hosted News Retrieved from http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRPjXRxRTmPa3pyzPRwdLig-VcMA?docId=CNG.fc6f3d0f38de85bec80c4d54825557ae.d1 Gay, Edward. (13 August, 2012) Merchant jailed over wine scams. The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved From http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10813061 Cooper, Michael (16 June, 2012) Vintage wine and old tricks New Zealand Listener. Retrieved From http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/wine/vintage-wine-and-old-tricks/ EIT Online. History of Wine and the Vine. Retrieved on 8 August 2012 http://eitonline.eit.ac.nz/pluginfile.php/176763/mod_resource/content/0/Week_02/HistoryofWineAndTheVine.pdf