History of Wine Making - How to Make Homemade Wine

How to Make Wine Started 8,000 Years Ago

Do you think the procedure of emerging wine from the historical shadows and progress into the polished, commercialized drink that exists today came easy? It certainly seems easy when your concept of wine is buying it from the store, however it is very easy if you learn how to make homemade wine, and you play close attention to the past history of wine

Have you ever thought where the grape came from? Don’t you think it’s incredible that someone figured out that they could squash it, uproar the juice, and create wine? The answer is – nobody knows. If you want to take a look on the history of wine, you have to start your journey from 6000 B.C. In this article you can find the major progressions of drinking and making wine throughout the years.

Wine was Considered as a Good Drinking Water

In ancient times, good drinking water was a thing that can’t be found anywhere and as people needed to drink something with their meals, a wonderful alternative was wine. Several indications like markings on tomb walls and stone tables were found of producing wine in Mesopotamia as far earlier as 6000 B.C. The wine that was produced by the Mesopotamians was possibly very rough compared to recent wines that we drink at present, but it was lot better than the available drinking water. In learning how to make homemade wine, it is important to know who first produced wine and learn how far it has come.

During the time of Pharaohs, the god Osiris, who was considered as the son of Earth and Heaven, was being worshiped by the ancient Egyptians. They linked his yearly resurrection to the blooming and budding grapevines every year. Nile River was another thing that was being worshiped by them because of its priceless gift of rich, fertile soil just after flooded over its banks and receded. The Egyptians discovered that they could cultivate flourishing grapevines utilizing this opportunity.

The process of winemaking has been refined by the Egyptians and somehow they were able to produce very sweet white and red dessert wines. The story of seducing Antony by Cleopatra is well known to all and if you see the drawings, you can discover that she was doing that by pouring Antony a glass of wine.

Winemaking Spread Throughout the Mediterranean

Over centuries, the procedure of winemaking reaches north as the Roman Empire begun to occupy the Mediterranean. According to the Greek historian Thucydides, the people of Mediterranean started to materialize from barbarism as soon as they learnt to grow the vine and the olive. Sometimes when you are learning how to make wine from home you may find through history how different civilization created agreeable growing conditions in their country.

The philosophy of winemaking was carried along with the Romans all through their home country Italy, then France, Germany, Spain and on to some parts of Britain. Bar corners became a standard in cities such as Pompeii. But those who couldn’t afford for bar drinking still imbibed by combining water and vinegar that is something like the cheap wine available today.

Sweet wine instead of dry one was being preferred by the Romans. They experimented by adding different ingredients like garlic, fermented fish sauce and onion to give them some pretty extraordinary flavors. Some finer addition were also been made by ancient Roman like Absinthe which is a very high alcoholic ingredients, rose petals, pepper and mint. Ancient Romans never accepted pure wine.   

Winemaking During the Dark Ages

As time progressed on, the consumption quantity of wine increased along with it. During the Dark Ages drinking water was still not so good, so people still preferred wine as an alternative to drink with their meals. The wide spread of Christian monasteries all through most of Europe kept the industry of wine alive.

The French Bordeaux area was flourishing, exporting wines all through Europe. In 14th century, when England lost control over the area, they started to import wines from Germany and Portugal.

In the time of William Shakespeare, plenty of people drank beer. However, those who are looking for more refined tastes were picking fine quality wines. Meanwhile, good drinking water became on hand in London. People sought wine as a social civilized drink, as they didn’t have to consider them as a part of their meals. Wine industry was pushed to its next chapter with the accessibility of good drinking water.   

Wine Industry During 17^th – 18^th Centuries

Wine faced a pretty hard competition with other sources of luxury like hard liquor, tobacco, beer and ale, chocolate, tea and coffee during the 17th century. The most amazing thing was that the industry had to contend with itself when Champagne was created. At that moment, they had to produce wines of better or similar quality by using the identical grapes they’d previously been using. 

During 18th century, England was not staying with France, and this is why they were not able to get the good French wine. As the British Empire continued to growing, they acquired South Africa, which became a wonderful supply of wine.

Despite the Wars of Napoleonic, the industry of French wine managed to succeed. Bordeaux wines turned into the desire of wine makers ubiquitously, as they still are at present. Napoleon himself expressed his feelings by saying “You deserve Champagne when you win. But when you got defeated, you need it”.

Wine Industry During the 19^th Century

At the time of Napoleonic Wars, Britain’s operations were centered in Portugal, and as they were not able to get any fine French wine, they carried in Port, from Oporto, a Portuguese island. Then, they revealed Jerez, the Spanish city, which was considered as the house of Sherry, consequently they gradually changed Port with Sherry.

In the meantime, Nicole Barbe, a French widow discovered an easy way of eliminating sediment from Champagne as well as adding wine, brandy and sugar. She developed a way of mass producing too.

With this discovery, lot of Europeans is immigrating to America and brought their knowledge of how to make wine from home. Thomas Jefferson welcomed the industry who considered that Americans drink hard liquor too much. Ideal situations were found for vineyards initially in Ohio, but California took over soon as the major wine growing area in the country. The wine of California was so great that they won 20 out or 34 awards in an international competition of wine-tasting in 1889 in Paris.

By this time, Australia introduced their first product in the wine making industry when an immigrant of there, James Busby, started cultivating grapes in Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley wines are still available today.

Another challenge arose in France for the industry – a vineyard sickness named Phylloxera. In fact, this disease was caused by infinitesimal aphids which sucked liquid out of the ancestries. It was revealed that the origin of Phylloxera is America and their attack on the vines of American didn’t affect much. So they created different kinds of hybrid grapes to create varied and different types of wines and propagate the vine roots of Americans and transport them to the attacked area of France. 

Learning about the wine industry will help you learn about winemaking problems you may encounter if you are trying to learn how to make wine from home. If you decide to grow your own fruit, grapes are the best in my opinion. To learn how to grow grapes there is an outstanding E-book here.

The Industrial Age of Wine Making

With the advancement of technological procedures, the industry of winemaking developed better techniques for production, which generated better and various kinds of wines. New techniques of storage such as refrigeration produced a brand new process. The process of fermentation could be controlled by changing temperatures at decisive times. All these procedures results better wines.

Machines for picking grapes were introduced, harvesting became faster and easier. Even harvesting at night became possible which was a very useful development, as the grape’s temperature at the time of picking is a very important factor in the procedure of winemaking. As more sophisticated technology was developed, wine makers discovered the process can be totally controlled. 

Conclusion - How to Make Homemade Wine

The journey of wine starting from 6000 B.C. to 21st century was not so easy at all. In present days, the winemaking industry and the wine itself is standing in such a position in the society that no one can think of a single day without it. Even the industry is currently looking to progress their quality and collection of fine wines. Wine has become so popular that many people would consider receiving fine wine as a wonderful gift from their loved ones. If you would like to learn how to buy expensive wine cheap check out this E-Book. Our home page describes the basic how to make homemade wine fundamentals and is the best place to start. You can also check out our Free tips & tricks plus the Free E-Course we offer and lastly our FAQ.

In learning how to make wine from home it is very interesting to research what they did in the past to make their wine processes better, sometimes studying the past helps you make better wines in the future. Nowadays you do not have to harvest and squeeze juice from fruit in order to make wine. You have the choice of buying fruit concentrate. To learn more please read our article on Fruit or Juice Concentrate.

Bookmark this page

BlinkListDeliciousDiggFacebookFarkFurlGoogle BookmarksLivejournalMa.gnoliaNetvouzNewsvineRedditSpurlStumbleuponWistsYahoo My Web