Wine

A Brief History of Wine

Wine is among humanity’s oldest companions. The earliest evidence of winemaking traces back more than 8,000 years to the South Caucasus — modern-day Georgia — where ancient peoples fermented wild grapes in clay vessels called qvevri. From there, the craft moved west through Persia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, where wine became currency, ritual, and medicine all at once.

The Greeks and Romans carried viticulture across Europe, planting vineyards from the shores of the Aegean to the hillsides of Gaul. The Romans in particular understood terroir long before the word existed — they mapped which soils produced the finest fruit and traded premium wines across a vast empire. When Rome fell, the Catholic Church became the unlikely steward of winemaking knowledge, with monasteries in Burgundy and the Rhine Valley preserving and refining techniques for centuries.

The 17th century brought the glass bottle and the cork stopper — two quiet revolutions that changed everything. For the first time, wine could age, evolve, and improve over years or decades. Bordeaux, Champagne, and Burgundy emerged as the world’s benchmark regions, their names becoming synonymous with quality and prestige.

The 20th century democratized wine. New World regions — California, Australia, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand — challenged Old World conventions and proved that exceptional wine could be made on every inhabited continent. Science entered the cellar, improving consistency, while a new generation of winemakers pushed back with natural and minimal-intervention approaches rooted in tradition.

Today, wine spans more than 10,000 grape varieties grown across 70 countries. Yet the essential act remains unchanged — a farmer, a vine, a season, and the patient alchemy of fermentation. Every bottle is a piece of that unbroken story.