Sources.

Every verifiable statement in this book (dates, figures, names, quotations) has been checked against the sources that establish it: work by historians, archaeologists and geneticists, peer-reviewed articles, official figures from wine bodies and governments, archives and dated press reports. They are listed here day by day, in the order of the book.

Where sources disagree on a date, a figure or an attribution, the disagreement is noted here rather than settled in silence. Figures describing the present are given with the year of the data. Online encyclopedias were used only to locate sources and are not cited.

Origins (Days 1–14)

1 · The First Vine: Somewhere in the Caucasus, 8,000 Years Ago

Patrick McGovern, Mindia Jalabadze, Stephen Batiuk et al., "Early Neolithic Wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 48 (2017): E10309–E10318 — dates the earliest biomolecular evidence for grape wine to about 6000–5800 BCE at Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, two Neolithic villages south of Tbilisi, identifies tartaric acid as the principal grape biomarker in the Near East, and contrasts the hermaphroditic domesticated vine with the dioecious wild vine; University of Toronto, "Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Winemaking" (November 13, 2017) — establishes that the excavations were directed by Mindia Jalabadze (Georgian National Museum) and Stephen Batiuk, while the chemical analyses were led from the Penn Museum; Yang Dong et al., "Dual Domestications and Origin of Traits in Grapevine Evolution," Science 379 (2023) — places two domestications about 11,000 years ago, in western Asia and in the Caucasus; Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, "Chateau Jiahu" — the ancient Chinese drink re-created with McGovern from his analyses, and BeerAdvocate, "Chateau Jiahu" — sold in 750 ml bottles; M. Wimmer, "How to Train Young Grapevines: Establishing Trunks, Cordons, and Spurs," University of Minnesota Extension (2026) — a half crop in the third year, a full crop from the fourth.

2 · Georgia, the Forgotten Cradle of Wine

Anastasiya Shtaltovna and Hart N. Feuer, "Modern Resilience of Georgian Wine: Geographical Indications and International Exposure," in Geographical Indication and Global Agri-Food, ed. A. Bonanno, K. Sekine, and H. N. Feuer (Routledge, 2019), 134–154, and Valentina Mittova et al., "Georgian Grapes and Wines as a Source of Phenolic Compounds," Molecules 31 (2026): art. 303 — the supra and the tamada, the Soviet period as a major shock to Georgian winemaking, and some 525 recorded native varieties, a figure going back to the Georgian ampelographic survey of the mid-twentieth century; Wines of Georgia, "Grape Varieties" — gives more than 500 varieties and presents Saperavi; National Wine Agency of Georgia, "Red Wine Grape Varieties" and "White Wine Grape Varieties" — Saperavi as "something to color with," "to dye," with inky, often fully opaque wines, and Rkatsiteli as "red stem," with notes of quince; Ana Cheishvili, "Add Nothing, Take Nothing Away: How Georgian Wine Regained Its Identity," in Uncorked, ed. P. Alonso González and E. Parga Dans (Springer, 2025), ch. 14 — reports the Soviet decision to use only sixteen grape varieties; Georgian National Tourism Administration, "Georgian Wine" — on wine as part of Georgian cultural identity, in songs and literature; Maurie O'Connor, "There Is Still a Qvevri About Stalin's Wine Cellar," Food Wine Travel (September 23, 2023), and National Wine Agency of Georgia, Khvanchkara PDO page — the Stalin anecdote as hearsay ("some say"), and Khvanchkara as a semi-sweet red of western Georgia. Sources disagree on the count of varieties: Shtaltovna and Feuer and Mittova give 525, Wines of Georgia "more than 500"; and on the meaning of Saperavi, which Wines of Georgia glosses as "the place of color" and the National Wine Agency as "something to color with."

3 · Kvevri: Georgia's Buried Wine Jars

McGovern et al. 2017 (see Day 1) — Neolithic wine about 6000 BCE, but no evidence that Neolithic jars were buried; large buried vessels appear only in the first millennium BCE; National Wine Agency of Georgia, "Qvevri Wine" — a tradition of about eight thousand years, the present form of the qvevri from the third millennium BCE, capacities from a few hundred liters to several tons (6,000 to 8,000 liters in Kakheti, most often one to two tons), and qvevri wines made by many companies and exported; UNESCO, Intangible Cultural Heritage, "Ancient Georgian Traditional Qvevri Wine-Making Method" (inscribed 2013) — pressed grapes go into the qvevri with "the juice, grape skins, stalks and pips," then the vessel is sealed for months; Mittova et al. 2026 (see Day 2) — crushing in a wooden press, a pomace cap punched down twice a day during fermentation, sealing once fermentation is over; Cheishvili 2025 (see Day 2) — skin contact lasting from a few days to six months; Emma Diggory, report on qvevri making in Georgia, The Buyer (February 2, 2018) — about three months to make one 2,000-liter qvevri, and a beeswax lining that clogs the pores without sealing them completely, and Wine Trail Traveler, "Making Qvevri Wine: Cleaning the Qvevri" (September 17, 2013) — the cherry-bark brush on a long handle; Decanter, "What Is Orange Wine? Ask Decanter," quoting Simon J. Woolf — the term "orange wine" coined in 2004 by David Harvey of Raeburn Fine Wines. Sources disagree on the age of the qvevri: the National Wine Agency dates its present form to the third millennium BCE, while McGovern et al. find large buried vessels only in the first millennium BCE.

4 · Mesopotamia: When Wine Was Reserved for the Gods

Cécile Michel, "Wine, a Drink for the Elite in Mesopotamia," Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg (November 21, 2024) — Mesopotamians mainly drank beer and imported wine from the west as an elite drink; Uruk imported wine from Aleppo in the second half of the fourth millennium BCE; Urukagina of Lagash had a storehouse built for "jars of mountain wine" around 2340 BCE; wine came down the Euphrates by the hundreds of jars from Carchemish to Mari in the eighteenth century BCE, to be stored in the palace, served at the royal table or given as diplomatic gifts; "Review: I Am Ashurbanipal," Current Archaeology — the British Museum relief on which the king pours a libation of wine over the dead lions; "A Ritual Tablet," in Assyrian and Babylonian Literature (D. Appleton, 1901), 403 — sesame wine offered to Shamash, Marduk among the gods of the ritual; Jean Bottéro, synthesis on the Mesopotamian vocabulary of wine — karānu (wine) qualified by strength, sweetness, clarity, color, and origin.

5 · The Egypt of the Pharaohs: The Wine of the Dead

"King Tut Liked Red Wine," ScienceDaily (March 26, 2005), reporting M. R. Guasch-Jané and R. M. Lamuela-Raventós in Analytical Chemistry — New Kingdom wine jars labeled with product, year, source, and the name of the vine grower, M. R. Guasch-Jané et al., "First Evidence of White Wine in Ancient Egypt from Tutankhamun's Tomb," Journal of Archaeological Science 33 (2006): 1075–1080 — twenty-six two-handled wine amphorae in the tomb; and J. Černý, Hieratic Inscriptions from the Tomb of Tutankhamun (Griffith Institute, 1965) — the edition of the hieratic dockets of the tomb, including the wine-jar labels; Eva-Lena Wahlberg, The Wine Jars Speak: A Text Study (Uppsala University, 2012) — quality notes such as "good wine" on some labels, and "offering wine" attested; European Commission, CORDIS, "Uncorking Egypt's Wine Heritage" (EGYWINE project, M. R. Guasch-Jané, 2018) — the association of red wine with the blood of Osiris and with rebirth; M. R. Guasch-Jané, El vi a l'antic Egipte (Universitat de Barcelona, 2005) — viticulture in the Delta from the beginning of dynastic Egypt; University College London, Wine in Ancient Egypt: Areas of Production — the Delta as main area, and the western oases attested in the New Kingdom; Raffaella Bianucci et al., "Shedding New Light on the 18th Dynasty Mummies of the Royal Architect Kha and His Spouse Merit," PLOS ONE 10 (2015), with Museo Egizio, Turin, on the tomb of Kha — the unplundered tomb TT8, opened in 1906, with more than five hundred objects.

6 · The Phoenicians: The First Wine Merchants

MIT News (1999), on two Phoenician shipwrecks of about 750 BCE laden with wine amphorae; Dodd 2022 (see Day 12) — a Phoenician role in spreading viticultural knowledge westward is plausible, alongside earlier local traditions, notably in Sardinia; Patrick McGovern, Armen Mirzoian, and Gretchen Hall, "Ancient Egyptian Herbal Wines," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 18 (2009) — the tomb U-j of Scorpion I at Abydos, about 3150 BCE (Dynasty 0), with some seven hundred jars of foreign type made in the southern Levant, and tree resins already added to the earliest Egyptian wines, long before the Phoenicians; S. Natskoulis et al., "Optimisation of Retsina Wine Quality…," 2024 — resin deliberately added to wine since antiquity, the origin of retsina; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cypriot amphora with Phoenician inscription, no. 241854, and Christopher Rollston et al., "… Of the Sidonian[s]" (University of Haifa, 2024) — amphora inscriptions naming owners or inspectors and, in some cases, a geographic affiliation; Alla V. Buiskikh, "Levantine Import in Borysthenes," Ancient World and Archaeology 18 (2017): 193–205 — Phoenician amphorae at Borysthenes on the Black Sea (second half of the seventh to early sixth century BCE), through direct trade or unknown intermediaries; Golan Shalvi et al., "Tel Shiqmona during the Iron Age: A First Glimpse into an Ancient Mediterranean Purple Dye 'Factory'," PLOS ONE (2025) — murex purple-dye workshops and the stench long associated with them; Harald Ringbauer et al., "Punic People Were Genetically Diverse with Almost No Levantine Ancestors," Nature 643 (2025), and Roald F. Docter, "Transport Amphorae," Brill's New Pauly — Phoenician maritime expansion in the first millennium BCE (Iron Age). Sources disagree on the siting of the dye works: the long-held view placed them outside settlements or downwind, while the Tel Shiqmona evidence contradicts it.

7 · How the Vine Conquered the Mediterranean

Roberto Aversano et al., "Dating the Beginning of the Roman Viticultural Model in the Western Mediterranean: The Case Study of Chianti (Central Italy)," PLOS ONE 12, no. 11 (2017): e0186298 — contrasts vines trained up live trees in Italy with Graeco-Phoenician viticulture (vines in rows, regular pruning); Columella, On Agriculture, book 3, trans. H. B. Ash (Loeb Classical Library) — still recommends Italian vines suited "to tree and trellis alike" in the first century CE; G. L. Cawkwell, "Early Colonisation," The Classical Quarterly 42 (1992) — Greek colonization from the eighth century BCE, and a single demographic cause questioned; L. de Rességuier et al., "Temperature Variability at Local Scale in the Bordeaux Area," Frontiers in Plant Science 11 (2020) — vineyards mostly between 30° and 50° north, but 30° and 40° south.

8 · Wine and the Sacred: Libations and Offerings

Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander, trans. E. J. Chinnock (1884), 1.11 and book 6 — Alexander pours a libation from a golden goblet into the Hellespont, and from the prow before sailing down the Hydaspes; Plautus, Aulularia, prologue — daily offerings to the household Lar (incense, wine, garlands); Thomas A. Dixon and Isak S. Pretorius, "Drawing on the Past to Shape the Future of Synthetic Yeast Research," International Journal of Molecular Sciences 21 (2020): art. 7156 — the proposals of Cagniard-Latour, Schwann, and Kützing in 1837 that yeasts are living organisms that ferment sugar, later taken up by Pasteur; Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, s.v. "trinquer" — derives the word from German trinken, "to drink," and A. Liberman, "Some of Our Basic Verbs: 'Drink'," OUPblog (2019) — trinquer from German trinken.

9 · The First Grape Varieties: Ancestors of Our Vines

John E. Bowers, Jean-Michel Boursiquot, Patrice This et al., "Historical Genetics: The Parentage of Chardonnay, Gamay, and Other Wine Grapes of Northeastern France," Science 285 (1999): 1562–1565 — a Davis–Montpellier study of more than three hundred cultivars, finding sixteen varieties (Chardonnay, Gamay noir, Aligoté, Melon among them) to be progeny of Pinot and Gouais blanc, Gouais having been banned without success at various times in at least two regions, its name derived from the Old French gou, a term of derision; John E. Bowers and Carole P. Meredith, "The Parentage of a Classic Wine Grape, Cabernet Sauvignon," Nature Genetics 16 (1997) — Cabernet Sauvignon as a cross of Cabernet franc and Sauvignon blanc, grown in Bordeaux at least since the seventeenth century; A. Quinton, "Cabernet Sauvignon's Long Memory Revealed," UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (2025), and N. L. Sweet, "The Black Grapes of Bordeaux," Foundation Plant Services, UC Davis (2018) — the cross dated to about four hundred years ago; OIV, Focus 2017: Distribution of the World's Grapevine Varieties — Cabernet Sauvignon (341,000 ha) the most planted wine grape, second only to the table grape Kyoho; Y. Zhou et al., "Population Sequencing Reveals Clonal Diversity and Ancestral Inbreeding in the Grapevine Cultivar Chardonnay," PLOS Genetics 14 (2018) — Chardonnay propagated vegetatively for centuries, with accumulated somatic mutations; IFV, La sélection clonale en 16 questions techniques — 31 approved Chardonnay clones in France; Thierry Lacombe et al., "Large-Scale Parentage Analysis in an Extended Set of Grapevine Cultivars (Vitis vinifera L.)," Theoretical and Applied Genetics 126 (2013) — 828 full parentages among 2,344 genotypes, showing that most old varieties arose from spontaneous crosses.

10 · Why Wine and Not Beer? The Choice of Civilizations

Michel 2024 (see Day 4) — beer as the everyday drink of the irrigated Mesopotamian plain, wine as an elite import from the uplands; Tacitus, Germania 23, trans. A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb — the Germans' drink of barley or wheat "fermented into a certain resemblance to wine"; Peter Damerow, "Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia," Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2012:2 — barley rations and beer jugs counted in the administrative texts; Dodd 2022 (see Day 12) — the Zagros and the Caucasus as early centers of grape and wine use; "The Beer Archaeologist," Smithsonian Magazine, on Patrick McGovern's work — the estimated daily ration of four to five liters of beer for pyramid workers.

11 · Amphorae: The Art of Ancient Transport

Roald F. Docter, "Transport Amphorae," Brill's New Pauly — the transport amphora invented in northern Syria and Cilicia in the Early Bronze Age II (2900–2600 BCE), with a more pointed base for shipboard stowage, an internal coating for wine, contents marked by painted inscriptions or stamps, and Monte Testaccio some 35 m high; Laure Chassouant et al., "Archaeobotanical and Chemical Investigations on Wine Amphorae from San Felice Circeo (Italy)," PLOS ONE 17 (2022) — a Pinaceae tar coating inside Roman wine amphorae; Natskoulis et al. 2024 (see Day 6) — resin deliberately added in ancient winemaking, retsina as its heir; Edoardo Radaelli, "Not Only Monte Testaccio: Reflections about the Presence of Baetican Olive Oil Amphorae in Rome (and Ostia)," 2021 — the Dressel 20 olive-oil amphorae from southern Spain that formed the hill; Bermúdez Lorenzo, "Tituli Picti Beta on Dressel 20 Amphorae from the Collection of Emilio Rodríguez Almeida from Monte Testaccio (Rome)," Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology 13, no. 2 (2026) — 80–85 percent Baetican olive-oil amphorae, and the painted inscriptions they carry; William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1875), s.v. "Quadrantal" — 48 sextarii, about 26 liters; review of A. Tchernia, P. Pomey, and A. Hesnard, L'épave romaine de la Madrague de Giens, Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire (Persée, 1981) — a full amphora of about 50 kg, stowed in four layers (five at Albenga); J. A. Lobell, "Trash Talk," Archaeology (2009), interview with José Remesal — Monte Testaccio holds "something like 25 million complete" amphorae; ANR, MATEGEE project — distinct and evolving amphora types from the production centers of Thasos, Lesbos, Chios, Cos, Cnidus, and Rhodes; Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 9th ed., s.v. "tonnage" — originally a duty paid on wine in casks. Sources disagree on the height of Monte Testaccio: Docter gives some 35 m, Bermúdez Lorenzo fifty meters above sea level. They also disagree on the number of amphorae: about 25 million complete vessels according to Remesal, codirector of the excavations, about 53 million in the estimate used for Day 24; the chapter says "tens of millions."

12 · The Wine of the Etruscans: Before Rome

Tarquinia Turismo, "Tomb of the Leopards" — a fresco of about 480 BCE with banqueters and musicians; Stephen Chrisomalis, Numerical Notation: A Comparative History (Cambridge University Press, 2010) — the Etruscans of central Italy, about 800–300 BCE, and their alphabet as the source of the Latin one; Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press) — the Latin alphabet derived from the Etruscan; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 12.14, trans. C. D. Yonge, quoting Theopompus — Etruscan women dine with men and drink, to the Greek writer's disapproval; Aversano et al. 2017 (see Day 7) — the Etruscans trained vines up live trees, without grafting or regular pruning, which came with the Romans in Chianti; Sardella et al. (Springer, 2026) — the dry-stone terraces of Lamole in Chianti, documented from the medieval period; Emlyn Dodd, "The Archaeology of Wine Production in Roman and Pre-Roman Italy," American Journal of Archaeology 126, no. 3 (2022) — Roman wine culture built on existing Etruscan viticultural expertise; Cosimo Posth et al., "The Origin and Legacy of the Etruscans through a 2000-Year Archeogenomic Time Transect," Science Advances 7 (2021) — Etruscan as a non-Indo-European language linked to Raetic and to Lemnian.

13 · The First Terroirs: When We Understood That Place Mattered

Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants 2.5.7 and De causis plantarum 4.11.6, as cited in The Oxford Companion to Wine, s.v. "Ancient Vine Varieties" — as many kinds of grapes as there are kinds of soil; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, book 1 — the fame of Chian wine, and of Ariusian in dry, sweet, and intermediate styles; Columella, On Agriculture 2.2.20, trans. H. B. Ash (Loeb Classical Library) — plant signs of a sweet soil (rush, reed, trefoil, bramble, wild plum), and the clod soaked in water and examined by tasting; Columella, On Agriculture 3.1.8–9 — bitter or brackish ground spoils the flavor of the wine; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.8, trans. J. Bostock and H. T. Riley — Caucinian on the summit, Faustian on the middle slopes, Falernian at the foot, the Faustian the most choice. Sources differ from the chapter on one point: Columella's tasting test is given for judging grain-land.

14 · What Archaeology Teaches Us About Ancient Wine

Kristine Margaryan et al., "Wild Grapes of Armenia: Unexplored Source of Genetic Diversity and Disease Resistance," Frontiers in Plant Science 14 (2023) — the wine-production complex discovered in 2007 in the Areni-1 cave, dated 4230–3790 BCE, and Hans Barnard, Alek Dooley, Gregory Areshian, Boris Gasparyan, and Kym Faull, "Chemical Evidence for Wine Production around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern Highlands," Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011): 977–984, on the chemical identification of wine at the site; "Wine and Death: The 2010 Excavation Season at the Areni-1 Cave Complex, Armenia" — the treading basin, the receiving vessel, grape seeds and residues in a cave also used for burials; Marie-Brigitte Carre, "Quelques pièces pour la manœuvre des voiles découvertes sur l'épave de la Madrague de Giens (Hyères, Var, 70-45 av. J.-C.)," Archaeonautica 20 (2018) — a ship of about 40 m carrying about six thousand amphorae of wine from Fondi, sunk about 70–45 BCE; Chassouant et al. 2022 (see Day 11) — pine pitch inside Roman wine amphorae, and McGovern, Mirzoian, and Hall 2009 (see Day 6) on herbal additives in ancient wine residues, with compounds compatible with coriander, thyme, and other herbs; P. E. McGovern et al., "Fermented Beverages of Pre- and Proto-Historic China," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (2004) — a mixed drink of rice, honey, and hawthorn fruit and/or grape at Jiahu in the seventh millennium BCE; McGovern et al. 2017 (see Day 1) — selected domesticated vines and wine stored in Neolithic jars; Cato, On Agriculture 112, and Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.78 — Coan-style wine made with seawater; Plutarch, Table Talk 3.9 — wine mixed with water in varying proportions in Greek drinking; "Lead Exposure in the Roman Empire: A Review of the Written, Material, and Bioarchaeological Evidence," Journal of Roman Archaeology (2026) — sapa as a boiled-down must used to sweeten or preserve wine, lead vessels recommended by some ancient authors for its preparation, and the theory of mass poisoning of the elite not supported.

The Wine of the Ancients (Days 15–29)

15 · Greece: Wine at the Heart of Civilization

Catherine E. Pratt, Oil, Wine, and the Cultural Economy of Ancient Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2021) — wine as a large-scale industry and an important commodity of Greek trade; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 1, trans. Gulick (Loeb) — Thasian, Chian and Lesbian among the prized wines of antiquity, and Pramnian placed on Lesbos by Ephippus but on Icaros by Eparchides and Semus; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.6, trans. Bostock and Riley (1855) — the Pramnian praised by Homer located "in the territory of Smyrna"; Marcello Valente, "La legge di Taso sul vino e l'aceto," Axon 2, no. 2 (2018): 61-68 — a fragmentary Thasian inscription of the fifth century BCE, called the oldest law on the wine and vinegar trade in the Greek world, with confiscation and fines; Alessandro Perucca, "Leggi di Taso riguardanti il vino e le vigne," Axon 5, no. 1 (2021): 103-122 — the two main Thasian wine laws (IG XII Suppl. 347): no buying of wine from grapes still on the vine before the month of Plynterion, a purchase of wine in storage jars valid only if the jar is marked, no Thasian ship to bring foreign wine between Athos and Pacheia, and fines for offenders; C. Shavlakadze, "Trade Activities of Chios in North Africa in Antiquity," Spekali — wines of Chios, Rhodes and Cos reaching Naucratis, in Egypt; ANR, MATEGEE project — the production centers of Thasos, Lesbos, Chios, Cos, Cnidus and Rhodes and their wine trade. The chapter says only that the island wines were traded far beyond their islands: no source found places them as far as Persia. Sources disagree on the origin of Pramnian, already disputed in antiquity: Ephippus gives Lesbos, Eparchides and Semus give Icaros, Pliny gives Smyrna; and on the date of the earliest Thasian rules: Valente dates his fragment to about 480-460 (or 460-450) BCE, Perucca dates the main laws to 411/410-390/389 BCE.

16 · Dionysus, the God of Wine and Intoxication

Apollodorus, Library, 3.4.3 and 3.5.2, trans. Frazer (1921) — Semele struck down by Zeus's divine presence, the unborn child sewn into Zeus's thigh, and Pentheus torn apart by his mother Agave; Ross S. Kraemer, "Ecstasy and Possession: The Attraction of Women to the Cult of Dionysus," Harvard Theological Review — the prominent place of women in the worship of Dionysus; Ruth Scodel, An Introduction to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge University Press), "Origins, Festival, and Competition" — Greek drama closely tied to the festivals of Dionysus; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 2, trans. Gulick (Loeb) — the tradition that comedy and tragedy were invented at Icarium, in Attica, at vintage time; Livy, History of Rome, 39.17.6 — the Bacchanalian affair of 186 BCE, said to involve "more than seven thousand men and women"; Official Athens Guide, "The Theatre of Dionysus" — the Great Dionysia held each spring, with the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides performed at the festival; Online Etymology Dictionary, "tragedy" (after Beekes) — the traditional link with a Greek expression meaning "goat song," the reason for the name being disputed. Livy gives the number of people implicated, not a number of convictions; the opposition of Apollo and Dionysus is a modern interpretation rather than an ancient doctrine; and the origin of the word "tragedy" remains disputed.

17 · The Symposion: Drinking Together, Philosophizing Together

Plato, Symposium, 176e and 212d, trans. Fowler (Loeb, 1925) — the guests agree to drink only as much as each wishes and to spend the evening in conversation, then Alcibiades bursts in "very drunken," supported by a flute girl; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 2, trans. Gulick (Loeb) — Eubulus on the three bowls mixed for temperate drinkers; Plutarch, Table Talk, III.9 — mixtures of two to one, three to two and three to one discussed, three of water to one of wine judged too weak and three to two preferred. Sources differ from the usual picture on one point: in Plato's dialogue the guests set the rules of drinking by common agreement, not through a symposiarch; and Plutarch shows that the proportions of the mix were debated, with no single rule.

18 · Why the Greeks Cut Their Wine With Water

Herodotus, Histories, 6.84, trans. Godley — the Spartan story that Cleomenes learned from the Scythians to drink strong, unmixed wine and went mad from it; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 2, trans. Gulick (Loeb) — Eubulus's Dionysus on three bowls (health, love and pleasure, sleep), followed by violence, uproar and blows; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 17.117.1, trans. Welles (Loeb) — Alexander drinking "much unmixed wine" at the party of Medius before falling ill; Plutarch, Table Talk, III.9 — several proportions of water to wine discussed (two to one, three to two, three to one), so the mix varied from one occasion to another. Sources disagree on both stories: Herodotus reports the Spartan explanation of Cleomenes' madness but does not accept it himself, and Diodorus gives, beside the drinking account of Alexander's death, a poisoning version (17.118).

19 · Rome: Wine Becomes an Industry

Cato, On Agriculture, 11, trans. Hooper and Ash (Loeb) — a staff of sixteen persons for a vineyard of 100 iugera, about 25 hectares or some sixty acres; Columella, On Agriculture, 3.3, trans. Ash (Loeb) — the comparison of a vineyard's profitability with grain and other crops, written in the mid-first century CE, about two centuries after Cato; Alexander Conison, The Organization of Rome's Wine Trade, AAWE Working Paper 123 (2012), 17-18 — estimates of wine consumption in the city of Rome; Candace Rice, "Shipwreck Cargoes in the Western Mediterranean and the Organization of Roman Maritime Trade," Journal of Roman Archaeology 29 (2016) — the "tanker-style" ships of the late first century BCE and early first century CE, carrying several dolia (1,656 and 1,972 liters for two jars of the Grand Ribaud D wreck) with Dressel 2-4 amphorae fore and aft; French Ministry of Culture, Archéologie sous-marine, glossary, "Dolium" — Roman-period dolia holding 500 to 3,200 liters; S. Marlier, "Architecture et espace de navigation des navires à dolia," Archaeonautica 15 (2008) — the tanker ships with dolia and their varied configurations; C. Cheung, "Making dolia and dolium makers," World Archaeology 55, no. 1 (2024) — dolia of 2,000 to 3,000 liters. Sources disagree on consumption: Tchernia estimates about 182 liters per inhabitant per year, Fleming revises the figure to 87 liters.

20 · Falernian: The Grand Cru of the Roman Empire

Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 1, trans. Gulick (Loeb), quoting Galen — Falernian drinkable after ten years, good from fifteen to twenty, and headache-inducing beyond; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.6, trans. Bostock and Riley (1855) — the Opimian vintage of 121 BCE, still in existence nearly two hundred years later, with the consistency of honey and a harsh taste, used in small amounts to season other wines; Pliny, Natural History, XIV.8 — the three growths of the Falernian hill (Caucinian on the summit, Faustian on the middle slopes, the most prized, Falernian at the foot) and Falernian as the only wine that "takes fire on the application of flame"; the year 60 BCE, the scorching summer of 121 BCE and the disappearance of the Campanian vineyards have been removed, for want of a source. Sources disagree on the color: Galen describes a dry, yellow Falernian and a darker, sweetish kind, where it is usually called white.

21 · How Rome Planted the Vine in Gaul

"French Wine, Italian Vine," Archaeology (Archaeological Institute of America), September/October 2013 — the pressing platform of Lattara (Lattes), about 425 BCE, the earliest evidence of winemaking in France, long before the Roman province; Alexander Conison, The Organization of Rome's Wine Trade, AAWE Working Paper 123 (2012), 158 — Tchernia's estimate of about 120,000 hectoliters (12 million liters) of Italian wine shipped to Gaul each year in the late Republic; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 5.26.3, trans. Oldfather (Loeb) — Italian merchants who receive a slave "in exchange for a jar of wine"; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.4 and XIV.6, trans. Bostock and Riley (1855) — the pitch-flavored wines of Vienne and the Biturigian vine; Rod Phillips, French Wine: A History (University of California Press, 2016) — the biturica as an ancestor of the carmenet (cabernet) family; Suetonius, Domitian, 7.2, trans. Rolfe (Loeb) — after a year of abundant wine and scarce grain, the edict forbidding new vines in Italy and ordering at least half the provincial vineyards cut down, a measure "he did not persist in carrying out"; Historia Augusta, Probus, 18.8, trans. Magie (Loeb) — Probus granting all the Gauls, Spaniards and Britons the right to cultivate vineyards; French Ministry of Culture, DRASSM, "L'expérience du Grand Congloué" — two superimposed wrecks off Marseille, with some 4,000 amphorae and about 10,000 pieces of pottery; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.27 (§ 132) — wine kept in wooden vessels hooped with bands in the Alpine regions; J. Theodore Peña, Roman Pottery in the Archaeological Record (Cambridge University Press, 2007) — amphorae often reused, so not single-use containers. Sources disagree with the usual reading of the edict: Suetonius gives no year and explains it by a glut of wine and a shortage of grain, not by the protection of Italian producers; Tchernia's figure is an order of magnitude, not a count.

22 · Wine in the Bible: From the Blood of Christ to the Flood

The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition — Genesis 9:20-21 (Noah, "the first to plant a vineyard," drunk and uncovered in his tent); Exodus 3:8 ("a land flowing with milk and honey"); Numbers 13:23 (the cluster carried "on a pole between two of them"); Psalm 104:15 ("wine to gladden the human heart"); Proverbs 20:1 ("Wine is a mocker"); John 2:6 and 2:10 (six stone jars at Cana; "Everyone serves the good wine first … But you have kept the good wine until now"); Mark 14:23-24 ("This is my blood of the covenant"). Genesis says Noah planted a vineyard and drank its wine, without describing the pressing.

23 · Wine and Islam: Prohibition and Paradoxes

"Diwan (Abu Nuwas)," Encyclopedia.com (from a Gale reference work) — Abu Nuwas (c. 760-c. 814), his wine poems (khamriyyat) and his place as boon companion of the caliph al-Amin; R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, and al-Zamakhshari, commentary on Qur'an 27:55 — the line "a cup … and tell me it is wine," quoted here in a free but faithful rendering; The Qur'an, 2:219 and 5:90, trans. Mustafa Khattab — intoxicants first said to hold "great evil … as well as some benefit," then called "evil of Satan's handiwork"; Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, "Alcohol and the Distillation of Wine in Arabic Sources," in Studies in al-Kimya' (Olms, 2009) — the distillation of wine described by Arabic authors from the ninth century (al-Kindi, d. 873), and the first Latin descriptions at Salerno about 1100 or in the Mappae clavicula about 1130. al-Razi, Kitāb al-Asrār, trans. J. Ruska (1937) — the description of distillation apparatus; Online Etymology Dictionary, "alcohol" (after the Oxford English Dictionary) — from the Arabic al-kuḥl, a fine powder used as eye makeup, later applied to an essence obtained by distillation. Sources disagree on transmission: al-Hassan argues that Latin wine distillation derives from Arabic science, a view others debate.

24 · Roman Wine Routes: Ancestors of the Appellations

Alexander Conison, The Organization of Rome's Wine Trade, AAWE Working Paper 123 (2012), 17-18 — consumption estimates of 182 liters (Tchernia) or 87 liters (Fleming) per person per year, at most about half a liter a day; Roman Inscriptions of Britain, instrumentum 2492 — painted inscriptions (tituli picti) on amphorae naming sender, origin, date and contents; University of Bologna, "Tituli picti con datazione consolare su anfore vinarie italiche" — Italian wine amphorae dated by the consuls of the year; Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 1, trans. Gulick (Loeb), quoting Galen — Falernian at its best between fifteen and twenty years; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.6 and XIV.8, trans. Bostock and Riley (1855) — Maronean and Pramnian wines famous since Homer, and Falernian's high rank; Mary Martin, Liquid Gold: The Olive Oil Trade between Baetica and Rome (honors thesis, University of Mississippi, 2016), 49-50 — Monte Testaccio, about 35 meters high, built from some 53 million amphorae, mostly Baetican olive-oil jars, used from Augustus to AD 255; Jarrett A. Lobell, "Trash Talk," Archaeology (2009), interview with José Remesal, co-director of the excavations — "something like 25 million complete" amphorae. Sources disagree on the size of Monte Testaccio: about 53 million amphorae for Martin, about 25 million complete ones for Remesal, so the chapter says "tens of millions"; on consumption (Tchernia against Fleming) and on whose name an amphora bears: it may be the producer's, the owner's or the shipper's.

25 · Pliny the Elder: The First Wine Critic

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.8, trans. Bostock and Riley (1855) — Pucinum, Setinum and formerly Caecuban ahead, Falernian given "the second rank," its decline through growers "more solicitous about quantity than quality," its three growths by slope, and the dealers of Narbonensis who disguise wine with smoke, herbs and "noxious drugs"; Pliny, Natural History, XIV.6 — the Opimian vintage of 121 BCE, still in existence nearly two hundred years later and used to season other wines; Pliny, Natural History, XIV.28 — drinking contests ending in "that pallid hue," "breath reeking of the wine-cask" and loss of memory, and (§ 141) truth commonly attributed to wine, "volgoque veritas iam attributa vino est"; Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.5 — his uncle's official career, his working habits and the thirty-seven books of the Natural History; Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.16 — his uncle's voyage toward Vesuvius in 79 CE, begun out of scholarly curiosity, turned into a rescue, and ending with his death on the shore. Sources disagree on Falernian's place: it was the most prestigious name of its day, but Pliny ranks it second; Pliny himself gives the Opimian's age as nearly two hundred years in one passage and uses 160 years in a price calculation under Caligula.

26 · The Fall of Rome: Does Wine Survive the Barbarians?

Katherine Fischer Drew, trans., The Burgundian Code: Book of Constitutions or Law of Gundobad; Additional Enactments (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949; repr. 1972) — titles XXVII.2 and XXVII.7 (broken vineyard fences; three solidi for entering another's vineyard and causing loss), XXXI, CIII (vineyard theft) and Additional Enactments XVIII (animals found in vineyards); Union des Maisons de Champagne, "The Early Middle Ages," Champagne Guest Book — summarizing Flodoard after Hincmar: Clovis baptized at Reims by Remigius around 496, and the blessed wine Remigius gave him that lasted through his campaign; Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, 2.31, trans. Brehaut (1916) — the baptism at Reims. Sources differ in date and content: Gregory's account of the baptism mentions no wine; the wine miracle comes from the later tradition of Hincmar and Flodoard, and none of these stories involves a local Champagne wine.

27 · Wine in the Byzantine Empire

Vera van Heel, "Wine Trade from the Holy Land," Leiden Medievalists Blog, May 13, 2022 — Palestinian amphorae and the "Gaza jar," exported "as far west as the British Isles"; Levantine Ceramics Project, "Late Roman Amphora 4 (LRA 4)/'Gaza' Jars" (entry by P. Reynolds, T. Erickson-Gini and J. Riley) — the Gaza jar produced from the first to the seventh century; "The Debate on Negev Viticulture and Gaza Wine in Late Antiquity," Tel Aviv (2021) — Gaza wine as a prized, probably white and sweet wine; "Distribution Patterns of Gaza Wine vs. Cilician Wine," Levant (2024) — the distribution of Gaza amphorae as far as Britain; Johannes Koder, ed. and trans., Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 33 (Vienna, 1991), ch. 19, "On the Innkeepers" — wine arrivals reported to the Eparch, who sets how wine is sold, matching measures and vessels, fixed opening and closing hours, and flogging, shaving and expulsion for unmarked vessels; E. H. Freshfield, trans., Book of the Eparch, ch. XIX — the price of wine fixed by the Eparch, with measures and tavern hours; "Commandaria, the Wine of Kings," Welcome Magazine (Cyprus), December 2020 — the Hospitallers' Grande Commanderie at Kolossi and the story of Richard I praising the wine at his wedding in 1191; Cyprus National Commission for UNESCO, and a Cyprus government publication on the Grand Commandery of Kolossi — the commandery held first by the Templars, then by the Hospitallers. Sources show the Richard story to be a later legend: the Hospitallers' commandery postdates the 1191 wedding. Sources differ on prices: Freshfield's translation has the Eparch fix the price of wine, a point Koder's summary of the chapter does not stress.

28 · The Invasions: Destruction or Transmission?

Katherine Fischer Drew, trans., The Burgundian Code (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949; repr. 1972), introduction, 1-2 — the Burgundians settled in Sapaudia, by Lake Geneva, by 443, then extended their kingdom southward along the Rhône, with Gundobad king from 474 and the written code probably no earlier than his reign; same volume, titles XXVII, CIII and Additional Enactments XVIII — fines for entering, stealing from or damaging another's vineyard; Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, 2.31, trans. Brehaut (1916) — the conversion and baptism of Clovis.

29 · What the Romans Left Us

Columella, On Agriculture, 3.3, trans. Ash (Loeb) — the advice to root out vineyards yielding less than three cullei per iugerum, and praise of high-yielding estates; Alexander Conison, The Organization of Rome's Wine Trade, AAWE Working Paper 123 (2012), 128 and n. 55 — Columella 3.2.5 (a vine of middling fertility worth choosing only where its wine sells dear), and Tchernia on the army, which also drank posca; Roman Inscriptions of Britain, RIB II.4, 2442, "Wooden Barrels" — Roman barrels found in Britain made mostly of silver fir, with larch or spruce, oak being rare, imported from the Continent and used for wine; Rob Sands and Elise Marlière, "Produce, Repair, Reuse, Adapt, and Recycle: The Multiple Biographies of a Roman Barrel," European Journal of Archaeology (2020) — Roman barrels of silver fir, Norway spruce and larch in the trade of the Empire; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIV.27 (§ 132) — wooden vessels for wine in the Alpine regions; J. Theodore Peña, Roman Pottery in the Archaeological Record (Cambridge University Press, 2007) — the reuse of amphorae; The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, John 19:29 — the jar of "sour wine" offered to Jesus on a sponge. For the chronology of Roman planting in Gaul, see the sources of Day 21. Sources disagree on how common posca was: it was a soldiers' drink, but Tchernia judges its habitual drinkers "likely remained the exception."

The Middle Ages (Days 30–42)

30 · The Monks: Saviors of the Vine

Philippe Wolff, review of Roger Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin en France des origines au XIXe siècle, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 5, no. 17 (1962) — Dion's thesis that the quality vineyards inherited from antiquity were kept up first by the bishops and, with less constancy, by the monasteries and the princes; Stefan K. Estreicher, "Wine and France: A Brief History," European Review (Cambridge University Press, 2023) — wine as a requirement of the Mass and the Cistercians' vineyard holdings; Wine Scholar Guild, "Researcher Sheds Light on True Role of Monks in Burgundy" (interview with Marion Foucher, ARTeHiS, Université de Bourgogne) — hired laborers working the abbey vines and how little is known of the monks' own practices; Archives départementales de la Côte-d'Or, "Aux sources du Clos de Vougeot" (2025) — the deeds and land records the monks kept on their vineyards; Jean-Claude Hocquet, "Le pain, le vin et la juste mesure à la table des moines carolingiens," Annales ESC 40, no. 3 (1985): 661–686 — reconstructed Carolingian allowances above a liter a day (about 1.4 liters at Notre-Dame de Soissons, 1.6 at Le Mans, up to 3.1 on feast days at Saint-Denis); The Rule of Saint Benedict, ch. 40, "The Measure of Drink" — the daily hemina, which the abbot may increase for work, heat or local conditions. Hocquet's reconstructions rest on a contested method, and the size of the hemina is itself debated: estimates run from about a quarter liter to just under half a liter.

31 · Cîteaux and Cluny: The Builders of Vineyards

Centre des monuments nationaux, History of the Abbey of Cluny — the foundation charter of September 11, 910; Abbaye de Cluny, official site — Cluny as one of the richest and most powerful monastic institutions of medieval Europe; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Abbey of Cîteaux" (1908) — the foundation in 1098 by Robert, abbot of Molesme, with monks who came from Molesme, "four leagues" from Dijon; Wine Scholar Guild, interview with Marion Foucher (ARTeHiS) — the lay brothers, then hired laborers from the fourteenth century, and the twentieth-century construction of the monks' image; Office de tourisme de Beaune, Château du Clos de Vougeot — the Cistercian estate built from gifts and purchases, and the wall that still bounds it; Berry Bros & Rudd, Vougeot — the 50 hectares, the 82 owners, and 1336 as the date the vineyard took its present form; Office de tourisme Dijon Métropole, Climates of Burgundy Recognised by UNESCO — the inscription of 2015; UNESCO, The Climats, terroirs of Burgundy — the part played by Cluniac and Cistercian monasteries in the development of the vineyards. Sources disagree on the date of the Clos de Vougeot wall: local heritage pages place it in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, Berry Bros in the fifteenth century; 1336 is the date of the last acquisition.

32 · The Birth of the Burgundy Terroirs

Jean-Pierre Garcia, "Non, les moines n'ont pas goûté la terre pour délimiter les terroirs viticoles de Bourgogne," Crescentis — no archive trace of monks tasting the soil, a modern story going back to Hugh Johnson (1989); Wine Scholar Guild, interview with Marion Foucher (ARTeHiS) — the monks' "tasting the soil" as a modern invention; Columella, On Agriculture II.2.20, trans. H. B. Ash (Loeb Classical Library, 1941) — clods soaked in water, strained "in the manner of dreggy wine" and "examined by tasting," in the first century CE; Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Tourisme, The Landscapes and Climats of Burgundy's Vineyard — more than 1,200 climats between Dijon, Beaune and Maranges, built by monks, Valois dukes, merchants and growers, the earliest named one (Clos de Bèze, seventh century) predating Cîteaux; Archives départementales de la Côte-d'Or, "Aux sources du Clos de Vougeot" (2025) — the deeds and land records preserved on the monks' vineyards; Office de tourisme Dijon Métropole, Climates of Burgundy Recognised by UNESCO — inscription on July 4, 2015 (39th session, Bonn); UNESCO, The Climats, terroirs of Burgundy (World Heritage nomination, 2015) — 1,247 climats from Dijon to the Maranges, across the Côte-d'Or and the Saône-et-Loire; the appellation decrees of 1936 — the formal hierarchy of Burgundy appellations.

33 · Bordeaux and England: The Marriage of the Century

English Heritage, Eleanor of Aquitaine — born about 1122, married to Henry on May 18, 1152, eight weeks after the annulment, Henry king in 1154, Eleanor keeping her own duchy; World History Encyclopedia, Eleanor of Aquitaine — Aquitaine as her inheritance, not a dowry; Sandrine Lavaud, "Le bassin d'approvisionnement de Bordeaux en vins du Moyen Âge à la fin de l'Ancien Régime," in Vignobles et vins en Aquitaine (Maison des sciences de l'homme d'Aquitaine, 2009) — England drawing its wine from Aunis, Saintonge and Poitou until the fall of La Rochelle in 1224, and the record 102,724 tonneaux of 800–900 liters each shipped by the port in 1308–1309; Jane Anson, "The Lasting Impact of Bordeaux's Medieval Trade Privileges," Inside Bordeaux — the privilege of the wines and the Saint Martin's Day rule of 1241; Association des amis du musée de l'artillerie, "La bataille de Castillon – 1453" — the French victory of July 17, 1453; Oxford Companion to Wine, "Claret — History" — clairet, a pale wine, as the origin of the English word; Liv-ex market reports — British buyers at about 30% of fine-wine trade volume and diversifying, American buyers first on Bordeaux in 2024, which is why the chapter no longer ranks the British among the leading buyers of the great growths.

34 · Claret: The Wine the English Kings Loved

Jane Anson, "Pirates, Plague and Pillaging: Anglo-Bordeaux Wine Trade in the Middle Ages," Inside Bordeaux — fleets often several hundred ships strong before the war, and the collapse of 1348–1349 (5,923 tuns, 74 ships); Oxford Companion to Wine, "Claret — History," and World English Historical Dictionary, "Claret" — clairet as a pale red wine, and the narrowing of "claret" to red Bordeaux after 1600; Frank Sargent, "The Wine Trade with Gascony," in Finance and Trade under Edward III, ed. George Unwin (Manchester University Press, 1918), 256–311 — the autumn sailing of the wine fleet and its seasonal rhythm; Robert Blackmore, "Wine Prices in Anglo-Gascon Trade, c.1337–c.1460" (Economic History Society, 2018) — prices driven by war, climate and disease; Association des amis du musée de l'artillerie, "La bataille de Castillon – 1453" — the battle that ended English Aquitaine.

35 · The Hanseatic League and the Wine Trade

Städtebund Die Hanse, Trading Posts — the four Kontore of Novgorod, London, Bruges and Bergen, and the wine German merchants brought to Novgorod with cloth, amber, salt and silver; THE HANSA, "Alliance of Cities" (hanse.org) — an alliance of German trading towns without a rigid structure, declining in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; Europäisches Hansemuseum — at Bergen, grain, flour, malt and beer exchanged for dried fish, oil and hides; Klaus Militzer, "Handel und Vertrieb rheinischer und elsässischer Weine über Köln im Spätmittelalter" (regionalgeschichte.net) — Cologne as the "wine house of the Hanse," Rhine and Alsace wines sold from the Baltic to England and the Low Countries, no monopoly, and a fall from 13,000–14,000 Fuder in the late fourteenth century to 7,000 in 1486; Bremen city portal, Bremen Ratskeller — the cellar under the town hall of 1405 and its Rüdesheim wine of 1653. Bremen calls its 1653 wine "the oldest cask wine in Germany," a narrower claim than the chapter's "one of the oldest wines still in existence in the world."

36 · The Pilgrims’ Wine: Compostela and the Wine Routes

UNESCO, Memory of the World, Codex Calixtinus — a compilation of 1138–1173 whose Book V is a guide to the routes to Santiago and the regions they cross; Xunta de Galicia, The Way of Saint James; Consejo Regulador DOCa Rioja, history of the appellation — the pilgrim routes as channels for people, know-how and the wine trade; Jim Chevallier, "The Great Medieval Water Myth," Les Leftovers (2013) — medieval texts showing water drunk routinely and judged by its clarity; Liber Sancti Jacobi (Codex Calixtinus), Book V (English version, codexcalixtinus.es) — the rivers to avoid, such as the Río Salado, and the praise of Estella, "full of good bread and the best wine"; Universidad de Navarra, Cátedra de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro, The Monastery of Irache — the Benedictine house and its pilgrims' hospital founded by García of Nájera; Xacopedia, "Vino, fuente del" — the wine fountain built in 1991 by Bodegas Irache and its two inscriptions ("A beber sin abusar…" and "…llegar a Santiago con fuerza y vitalidad…").

37 · Wine at the Castle: Luxury and Diplomacy

International Wine Challenge, "The Life, Death and Rebirth of Malmsey" — the sweet Greek wines traded west by Venetian and Genoese merchants; Grover Furr, "France vs. Italy: French Literary Nationalism in 'Petrarch's Last Controversy'," Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference 4 (1979) — the French cardinals at Avignon praising the healthful wine of Beaune against a return to Rome, and Petrarch's reply; Centre de Gastronomie Historique, Hypocras — hypocras spiced with cinnamon, ginger and clove, its "sleeve of Hippocrates" filter, and its place at the end of banquets.

38 · The First Regulations: Ancestors of the AOC

Jane Anson, "The Lasting Impact of Bordeaux's Medieval Trade Privileges," Inside Bordeaux — the privilege of the wines, the Saint Martin's Day rule of 1241, the Christmas rule of 1373, and its abolition by Turgot in 1776; Sandrine Lavaud, "Le bassin d'approvisionnement de Bordeaux…" (2009) — the restrictions on the wines of the haut-pays; Roger Dion, "L'ancien privilège de Bordeaux" (1955, Persée) — the wines of the haut-pays held back until Christmas from 1373, and new wine selling dearer than old; Archives municipales de Beaune, "Cépages, appellations, gardes-vignes et bans de vendanges : le législateur dans les vignes" (2018) — the ban des vendanges granted to Beaune by Duke Eudes III in 1210; Otto Volk, "Weinbau und Weinabsatz im späten Mittelalter. Forschungsstand und Forschungsprobleme" — local bans on selling blends of vintages or qualities under the name of a better wine, and severe penalties for adulteration (a forger walled in at Überlingen in 1471, fraudsters banished, branded or flogged at Cologne); INAO, 1935–1970: The Advent of INAO and the Creation of AOCs — the decree-law of July 30, 1935.

39 · The Hundred Years’ War: What Impact on the Vineyards?

Jane Anson, "Pirates, Plague and Pillaging: Anglo-Bordeaux Wine Trade in the Middle Ages," Inside Bordeaux — fleets several hundred ships strong, exports of 74,053 tuns before the war falling to 16,577 the next year and rarely above 20,000 afterwards, and about a quarter of early-fourteenth-century exports going to England; Roger Dion, "L'ancien privilège de Bordeaux" (1955, Persée) — the autumn "fleet of wines" bound for England; Oxford Companion to Wine, "Claret — History" — "claret" as the British term for red Bordeaux; Sandrine Lavaud, "Le bassin d'approvisionnement de Bordeaux…" (2009) — the decade 1340–1350 ending the growth of the thirteenth century, the Christmas rule of 1373, the measures of Charles VII and Louis XI after 1453, and the 102,724 tonneaux of 1308–1309 as the total traffic of the port; Jane Anson, "The Lasting Impact of Bordeaux's Medieval Trade Privileges," Inside Bordeaux — the Christmas rule of 1373; Association des amis du musée de l'artillerie, "La bataille de Castillon – 1453" — July 17, 1453, the artillery of the Bureau brothers and the death of Talbot; Stefan K. Estreicher, "Wine and France: A Brief History," European Review (2023) — some 100,000 tuns in 1308–1309. Sources disagree on England's share of the 1308–1309 peak: Lavaud gives the figure as the port's total traffic and Anson sends about a quarter of exports to England, while Estreicher writes that "some 100,000 tuns of wine were shipped to England"; all agree that exports collapsed during the war. Liv-ex market reports (see Day 33) no longer support ranking Britain as the most faithful buyer of great vintages; the chapter keeps only the survival of the word claret.

40 · The Wine of the Crusades: East Meets West

Elisabeth Yehuda, "Wine Production in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem," The Ancient Near East Today (ASOR), December 2021 — wine-making limited to Christian communities before the crusades, grapes grown mostly for raisins and grape honey, and the Franks' renewal of production in the twelfth century; Emily K. Myerson, The Desire for Syria in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press, 2025), ch. "Sweet Wine" — sweet wines of the crusader states exported to England; Centre de Gastronomie Historique, Hypocras — hypocras as heir of the spiced wines of ancient Rome, and its recipe in the Ménagier de Paris (1393); International Wine Challenge, "The Life, Death and Rebirth of Malmsey" — Venetian and Genoese trade in Greek malmsey; Museum of the Order of St John, "Home Sweet Home – The Hospitallers in Cyprus" — Richard I's landing in 1191 after his fleet was blown off course, and the Hospitallers' Kolossi estate, held from 1210, producing sugar and commandaria.

41 · The Sweet Wines of the Middle Ages: Malmsey and Hypocras

Centre de Gastronomie Historique, Hypocras — the spices, the "sleeve of Hippocrates" filter, and the Ménagier de Paris recipe (about 1393) with ginger, cinnamon, grains of paradise and sugar; International Wine Challenge, "The Life, Death and Rebirth of Malmsey" — the Monemvasia origin, the names Malvasia, Malvoisie and Malmsey, and Venetian and Genoese trade from the twelfth to the seventeenth century; Exploring London, "The Execution of George, Duke of Clarence" (2018) — the execution of February 18, 1478, after a bill of attainder, and the malmsey story as a rumor circulated soon after his death.

42 · How Wine Was Kept in the Middle Ages

Pliny the Elder, Natural History XIV — wooden vessels used for wine in the Alpine regions, an ancient cooperage tradition; Simeon Guthier, "Mythen des Mittelalters," Weingeschichte Rheinhessen (2022) — wine drunk young, then sulfuring becoming standard north of the Alps in the fifteenth century and allowing storage "over several years"; Noël et al., "Sulfites Chemistry in Wines…" (2026) — the first mentions of cask sulfuring in fifteenth-century Germany and the regulation of 1487; Hans-Peter Schmidt, "Die Geschichte des Schwefels im Wein," Ithaka Journal (2012) — Maximilian I's decree of 1487 on sulfuring (the Did You Know?); Otto Volk, "Weinbau und Weinabsatz im späten Mittelalter. Forschungsstand und Forschungsprobleme" — the 1487 regulation adopted in 1498; Wine Scholar Guild, interview with Marion Foucher (ARTeHiS) — how little is known of monastic cellar practice. Schmidt places heavy sulfuring as early as the tenth century, Guthier and Noël et al. in the fifteenth; none attributes it to the monks.

The Birth of the Great Wines (Days 43–57)

43 · The Renaissance: Wine Becomes Art

Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, "Medici, Piero de'" (Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Treccani) — dates the expulsion of the Medici from Florence to 9 November 1494 and their return to 1512, which is why the scene at their tables is set in the late fifteenth century; Colette Féraudet, "Les Noces de Cana," Panorama de l'art (Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais) — gives the date (1562–1563), the size (677 × 994 cm, about 67 m²) and the Louvre location of Veronese's Wedding at Cana, painted for the refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, and ranks it as the largest painting in the museum.

44 · The Medici and Chianti: The Birth of a Tuscan Terroir

"Chianti: un nome, due vini," Rivista di Agraria.org (2017) — on the adulteration of wines shipped abroad, the edict of 18 July 1716 that set up a Congregazione to control them, and the separate edict of 24 September 1716 delimiting the four regions of Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano and Val d'Arno di Sopra; Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico, "History of the Black Rooster" — quotes the boundary clause of Cosimo III's 1716 decree (Greve, Panzano, Radda, Gaiole, Castellina) and tells the legend of the Florentine and Sienese horsemen, with the black-rooster emblem going back to the Lega del Chianti (1384); Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico, "Storia del Chianti Classico" and "1716" — the name Chianti attested for the wine in 1398, and the official delimitation of 1716.

45 · The Glass Bottle: A Revolution

Stourbridge Glass Museum, Local Glass History Teachers' Resource (2024), pp. 2–4 — on the royal proclamation of 1615 banning wood as fuel for glassmaking to protect the forests, and on glassmaking in coal-fired furnaces; Olive R. Jones, Cylindrical English Wine and Beer Bottles, 1735–1850, Studies in Archaeology, Architecture and History (Parks Canada, 1986), pp. 10–11, 26–27 — on the switch from wood to coal, the dark green bottle glass "probably devised by Sir Kenelm Digby in the early 1630s," the introduction of the cylindrical body in the late 1730s, and late-seventeenth-century bottles stored upside down in pierced shelves; Rachel Tyson, "The Glass," in "Excavations in 2014 at Wade Street, Bristol," Internet Archaeology 45, appendix 4 — dates "onion" bottles to the late seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century and cylindrical ones to the later eighteenth to early nineteenth century from excavated finds. Jones dates the first cylindrical bottles to the late 1730s; Tyson's excavated assemblages show them becoming common only later in the century. Neither Jones nor the other sources call Digby a glassmaker: he financed and directed bottle production.

46 · The Cork Stopper: The Invention That Changes Everything

Olive R. Jones, Cylindrical English Wine and Beer Bottles, 1735–1850 (Parks Canada, 1986), pp. 10, 27 — cork as a closure was known by the sixteenth century and came into wide use in the seventeenth along with glass bottles; bottles were laid down only once their body became cylindrical; APCOR (Portuguese Cork Association), "Cork oak" — on the legal minimum of nine years between harvests and the producing countries (Portugal, Spain, then North Africa, Italy and France); Wine Spectator, "Study Claims Less Than 1 Percent of Corks Are Noticeably Tainted" (20 August 2009) — sets Christian Butzke's estimate of under 1 percent against James Laube's 7 percent of 2,800 bottles (2005) and a French estimate of 5–8 percent (2003); Northwest Wine Report, "How big of an issue is cork taint really?" (February 2023) — about 3 percent of corks contaminated with TCA, after Cork Quality Council data. Estimates of cork taint diverge widely, from under 1 to 7–8 percent, depending on method and on the taster's sensitivity.

47 · Dom Pérignon: Deconstructing the Myth

Union des Maisons de Champagne, "Dom Pérignon, moine bénédictin de l'abbaye d'Hautvillers" — his arrival at Hautvillers on 23 May 1668, his work on blending and on early-morning harvests, an abbey inventory of 1713 listing only still wines, his death on 14 September 1715, and Dom Grossard's letter of 1821 as the starting point of the legend; Comité Champagne, "L'histoire du Champagne" — gentle pressing developed collectively in Champagne, not by one man; Comité Champagne, "La bouteille de Champagne" — on bottles bursting in the eighteenth century, to the point that the wine was thought to be "the devil's wine"; Tilar J. Mazzeo, The Widow Clicquot (HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 31–34 — on the late-nineteenth-century marketing origin of "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!"; Rod Phillips, "The Murky Origins of Sparkling Wine," GuildSomm (29 March 2012) — on the absence of any evidence for the "stars" line and on the legend built from 1821; Millesima, "Dom Pérignon: Secrets of a Legendary Vintage Champagne," and Oregon Wine Press, "Mystique in a Bottle" — 1921 as the first Dom Pérignon vintage, shipped in 1936. Mazzeo is more categorical than the Union des Maisons de Champagne: she has the monk working to stop the bubbles, while the UMC says only that he made still wines.

48 · Champagne: The True Story of the Bubbles

Comité Champagne, "La bouteille de Champagne" — the "devil's wine" of bursting bottles; J.-P. Louis-Perrier, Mémoire sur le vin de Champagne (1886), letters of 28 March 1735 and 5 September 1736, as reproduced by the Union des Maisons de Champagne — the "saute-bouchon" (cork-popper); Comité Champagne, "Champagne and its climate" and "Champagne and its history" — Reims at about 49° N, near the northern limit of quality winegrowing; the deliberate making of sparkling wine between 1670 and 1720; Jean-Baptiste François's method for measuring sugar (1837) and the stronger bottles of the nineteenth century; Tilar J. Mazzeo, The Widow Clicquot (HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 31–34 — a small English market for sparkling champagne by the 1660s, and the advertising origin of the "stars" line; François Bonal, "Les origines historiques de la mousse," Union des Maisons de Champagne — Champagne wines bought in casks and bottled in England, in stronger English glass and with cork, and sparkling Champagne in France around 1695–1700; Sarah Gillam, "Christopher Merrett and the beginnings of champagne," Royal College of Physicians Museum blog (22 December 2017) — quotes Merret's paper of 17 December 1662 on wine-coopers adding sugar "to all sorts of Wines, to make them drink brisk and sparkling." The sources agree that the English described and practiced deliberate re-fermentation first; Merret's paper, however, speaks of wines in general and does not name Champagne.

49 · Madame de Pompadour and Champagne

Château de Versailles, "Madame de Pompadour" — her dates (1721–1764), her meeting with Louis XV in 1745, the Château de Bellevue, and her taste for champagne; François Bonal, "Le succès et les habitudes de consommation," Union des Maisons de Champagne — champagne at the Regent's suppers, Madame de Mailly giving Louis XV the taste for it, and the line attributed to Pompadour, found in none of the memoirs of the period; Tom Stevenson, "Le Déjeuner d'Huîtres: The first sparkling Champagne painting," World of Fine Wine — de Troy's painting of 1735, commissioned by Louis XV, showing sparkling champagne at court a decade before Pompadour; Jean-Robert Pitte, "Du champagne, pour dissiper la tristesse du roi Louis XV !," Territoires du vin (Université de Bourgogne, 2019) — the Regency fashion for champagne, and the lack of any basis for the legend of the coupe molded on a breast. The sources agree that the court fashion for sparkling champagne predates Pompadour.

50 · The 1855 Classification: The Bordeaux Hierarchy

Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855, official site — the request of Napoleon III, the price-based method, publication on 18 April 1855, today's 61 red wines in five ranks, and Yquem as the only premier cru supérieur; "Bordeaux's First Growths Have Been Paid to Be Great Since 1855," The Polished Palate, drawing on Dewey Markham, 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification (Wiley, 1997) — the request of 5 April and the list delivered on 18 April 1855, and the late addition of Cantemerle; Stefan K. Estreicher, "Wine and France: A Brief History," European Review (2023) — a price hierarchy of the Bordeaux crus well before 1855; Vinfolio, "Your guide to Bordeaux's 1855 classification" — the 58 properties of the original list, Cantemerle added in 1856, the later splits of estates, Mouton's promotion in 1973 and its two mottos; The Wine Gourd, "Making modern sense of the 1855 Bordeaux classification" (October 2019) — the arithmetic from the original list to today's 61; CIVB, "Grands Crus Classés en 1855" — the Médoc estates plus Haut-Brion, the Sauternes and Barsac list, and the permanence of the classification; CIVB, "Le classement de 1855" — the task entrusted by the Chamber of Commerce to the brokers, the request of 5 April and the classification of 18 April 1855, and the absence of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol. Counts of the original list vary by one (57 or 58, depending on whether Cantemerle is included); all sources agree that 61 is today's figure, not that of 1855.

51 · How Bordeaux Became Bordeaux

CIVB, "Médoc" appellation page — marshes of the Médoc drained by Dutch engineers in the seventeenth century; Château Haut-Brion, "History" — the names "Aubrion" and "Haulbrion" attested as early as 1521 and 1526, and 169 bottles of "Hobriono" received for the table of Charles II in 1660, before Pepys's note of 1663; C. Leary, "Making a shift at Haut-Brion: John Locke's journal…," Journal of Wine Research (2025) — Arnaud de Pontac's part in building Haut-Brion's reputation in England; World of Fine Wine, "Wine in Pepys: Ho Bryan and beyond" — "Hobrionno" in the royal cellar book of 1660, and Pepys's "Ho Bryan" of 1663; Bordeaux Tourisme, "Chartrons" — the district named after a Carthusian house of the fourteenth century, and its English, German, Irish, Dutch and Flemish merchants; Robert Blackmore, "The effects of commercial privileges in late medieval Bordeaux, 1348–1449," French History 34, no. 1 (2020) — the privileges that framed the trade of foreign merchants in Bordeaux. The sources agree that Haut-Brion is named in 1660, three years before Pepys, hence "one of the earliest mentions."

52 · The Burgundy of the Dukes

"Le 'très loyal pinot' : itinéraire d'un cépage mythique de la Bourgogne," Crescentis (Université de Bourgogne) — the ordinance of 31 July 1395 and its wording, "très mauvais et très desloyaul plant"; Association des Climats du vignoble de Bourgogne, supplementary booklet — the ordinance's complaint of a "très grande abondance de vins" from gamay; Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne, "From 5th to 15th c.: wines made by monks and trumpeted by the Dukes of Bourgogne across Europe" — Philip the Bold's ban on gamay in favor of pinot noir, Burgundy served at the tables of the king of France and of the pope at Avignon, and the founding of Cîteaux in 1098; Association des Climats du vignoble de Bourgogne, "Historic timeline" — the Valois dukes setting the standard of taste in Europe, the monastic delimitation of plots on the Clos de Vougeot model, and the end of ducal Burgundy in 1477; Jean-Pierre Garcia, "Non, les moines n'ont pas goûté la terre pour délimiter les terroirs viticoles de Bourgogne," Crescentis — no archival trace of monks tasting the soil, a modern tale going back to Hugh Johnson (1989).

53 · Port: The Birth of a Fortified Wine

Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto, "História Vinho do Porto" — Anglo-French trade practically halted from 1689 to 1714, the Methuen Treaty of 1703, and the shift of port toward the sweet style from the first quarter of the nineteenth century; Olive R. Jones, Cylindrical English Wine and Beer Bottles, 1735–1850 (Parks Canada, 1986), p. 26, citing A. D. Francis, The Wine Trade (1972) — the addition of brandy to port recommended as early as 1720 and widely practiced by the 1740s; Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto, official site — fortification with grape spirit to stop fermentation, leaving a sweet wine of 19–22 percent alcohol, and the Douro as the oldest demarcated and regulated wine region in the world (1756); Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto, "Port Wine Day 2022" — the demarcation of 10 September 1756 under the Marquis of Pombal; Taylor's, "Our history" — the house founded in 1692; Graham's, "Our story" — the house founded in 1820. The sources support a long, gradual shift; Jones, after Francis, shows brandy addition already widespread in the 1740s, while the IVDP dates the move to today's sweet, fortified style to the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

54 · Sherry: The Wine of the Conquistadors

Consejo Regulador Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, "History of Sherry" — Drake's 3,000 kegs taken at Cádiz in 1587, exports to England from the twelfth century, the Phoenicians, the capture of Jerez by Alfonso X in 1264, the solera taking shape in the late eighteenth century, fortification becoming an oenological technique at the same time, and Shakespeare's references; Consejo Regulador, "The history of sherry casks" — Magellan's provisioning in 1519 (253 casks and several hundred wineskins of Jerez wine), which cost more than the munitions, after the Archives of the Indies; Consejo Regulador, "Ageing" — flor and the mechanics of the solera; Consejo Regulador, "Fortification" — finos and manzanillas fortified to 15 percent, olorosos to at least 17 percent, a level at which flor cannot survive; William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, act 4, scene 2 (Folger Shakespeare Library edition) — Falstaff's praise of "sherris sack," which attests the English form sherris. The Consejo's pages are read as giving 417 or 437 wineskins for Magellan; the chapter prints no figure.

55 · The Merchants: The Families Who Made Wine

Bordeaux Tourisme, "Chartrons" — the English, Irish, German and Dutch merchant community of the district; Schröder & Schÿler, "Histoire" — the house's Hamburg-born partners; Barton & Guestier, "History" — Thomas Barton, born in County Fermanagh in 1695, settled in Bordeaux in 1725, and the house that continues as Barton & Guestier; Winedoctor, "Château Gruaud-Larose" — Abraham Lawton, arrived in 1739, broker by about 1742 and recording the prices of crus from 1742; R. Ayoun, review of Paul Butel, Les dynasties bordelaises, de Colbert à Chaban (1991), and a study of the Bordeaux wine trade in Liame — the Johnston and Lawton families among the foreign houses of Bordeaux, the Lawtons as brokers; Château Léoville Barton, "Héritage" — Barton avoiding land purchases because of the droit d'aubaine, and Hugh Barton's purchases of Langoa (1821) and Léoville (1826); H. Mise, "Droit d'aubaine in eighteenth-century France," Shigaku 127, no. 9 (2018) — the Crown's right to inherit the property of foreigners who died in the kingdom.

56 · Wine at the Court of Louis XIV

Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne, "Les vins de Bourgogne, de la royauté à la Révolution" — Fagon's prescription of "vin vieux de Bourgogne" in 1693, and the earlier success of Champagne wine at court; Jean-Robert Pitte, "Du champagne, pour dissiper la tristesse du roi Louis XV !," Territoires du vin (Université de Bourgogne, 2019) — the poetic and medical quarrel between Burgundy and Champagne, still alive around 1711 (Grenan), and Fagon's hostility to sparkling wine; C. Viel, "Publicité pour le Champagne sous couvert de ses vertus thérapeutiques," Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie (2004), and Question agitée… si le vin de Reims est plus agréable et plus sain que le vin de Bourgogne (1700), Bibliothèque nationale de France — physicians and learned treatises on both sides of the quarrel; Château de Versailles, "Louis XIV" — the seventy-two-year reign and the king's death on 1 September 1715; François Bonal, "Les origines historiques de la mousse," Union des Maisons de Champagne — Champagne wines of the period still largely still.

57 · The First Critics: The Birth of Taste

World of Fine Wine, "Wine in Pepys: Ho Bryan and beyond" — Pepys's words of 10 April 1663 at the Royal Oak Tavern in Lombard Street, and the royal cellar-book entry of 1660 that precedes them; The National Archives, "Samuel Pepys" — Pepys as an administrator of the Royal Navy; Château Haut-Brion, "History" — François-Auguste de Pontac opening Pontack's Head in London in 1666, and John Locke's visit of 1677 and his remark on the soil ("pure white sand, mixed with a little gravel"); Jane Anson, "How the Pontack's Head tavern took London by storm" — the tavern of 1666 and its sign showing Arnaud de Pontac; Magdalene College, Cambridge, "Samuel Pepys's Diary" — the diary written in Thomas Shelton's published shorthand, transcribed by John Smith and first published in 1825; University of Leicester, "Reading Pepys's shorthand" — the diary largely written in shorthand; F.-G. Pariset, "Locke à Bordeaux (1677-1678)" (1954) — Locke's notes on the Bordeaux region during his stay. The 1660 royal record predates Pepys, hence "one of the oldest known named mentions."

The Technical Revolutions (Days 58–70)

58 · 1789: The Revolution and the Vineyards

Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, Château du Clos de Vougeot: dossier de presse (undated) — the Clos created by Cîteaux from donations of 1109–1115, its 50 hectares, its seizure as national property in 1790, the Ouvrard purchase of 1818, the 1889 sale to six wine merchants, its division today among some 80 owners, and the Renaissance château sold to the leaders of the Confrérie on 29 November 1944; Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon, "Achat du Clos de Vougeot par la famille Ouvrard" — the sale as national property in 1791, the Ouvrard family as later owners from about 1818, and the 1889 sale to six Dijon merchants; Beaune Tourisme, "Appellation Clos de Vougeot" — 50 hectares shared among about 80 owners; Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860, 1st series, vol. 9, p. 649 — the decree of 2 November 1789 placing Church property at the disposal of the Nation; Archives parlementaires, decree of 8 April 1791 on successions — the abolition of all inequality between heirs based on birth order or sex; Code civil des Français (1804), art. 745 — children inherit in equal shares; Château Margaux, "Notre histoire" — the estate sold as national property during the Revolution. The 1791 buyer was not the Ouvrard family: the Dijon academy and the Clos press kit place the Ouvrards only from 1818; and equal inheritance spans two texts, the 1790 one covering noble estates only, the general rule coming in 1791.

59 · Powdery Mildew: The First Alarm

Jamie Goode, "Wine Science: Powdery Mildew, the Wine World's Biggest Problem," Wine Anorak, 27 March 2020 — the fungus's American origin, the gardener Tucker at Margate in 1845, and the early use of sulfur; Jean-Paul Legros, lecture on Henri Marès, Académie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier, conference no. 3722 (23 October 2000) — Berkeley's naming of Oidium tuckeri in the Gardeners' Chronicle (1847), the fungus's arrival in France (Versailles 1848, Hérault 1850), sulfur already used in English greenhouses (1846), and Marès, engineer and landowner, systematizing sulfuring from 1854, with its spread between 1856 and 1862; T. Loua, "Production vinicole de la France," Journal de la Société statistique de Paris 15 (1874): 21–28 — national output falling from 45 million hl in 1850 to about 10.8 million in 1854, then recovering to 35.4 million in 1857 and 53.9 million in 1858; Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, Biota of New Zealand, "Oidium tuckeri Berk. 1847" — the name, its author, and its current name Erysiphe necator; INRAE, "Vigne – Oïdium (Erysiphe necator)" — the disease first reported in England in 1845, its spread to continental Europe, the grayish-white coating and the French name blanc de la vigne; INRAE, "Peut-on se passer du cuivre en agriculture biologique ?" — sulfur and copper as crop-protection products permitted in organic farming. Sources disagree on Tucker's greenhouse: Legros places it near Canterbury and dates the discovery to 1844 or 1845, Goode places it at Margate in 1845 (both in Kent).

60 · Phylloxera: The Wine Apocalypse

Victor Du Bled, "Les transformations de l'agriculture," Revue des Deux Mondes, 5th period, vol. 47 (1908): 411–446 — about 2,500,000 hectares of vines in 1865, and an area reduced by a quarter by phylloxera; FranceAgriMer, Les chiffres-clés de la filière viti-vinicole 2024 (2025) — 766,674 hectares of vineyard in 2024; Giulia Meloni and Johan Swinnen, "The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter — And Its Institutional Legacy," Journal of Wine Economics 9, no. 1 (2014): 3–33 — one third of the French vine area destroyed between 1875 and 1889, wine made from imported raisins, and Algeria as the world's leading wine exporter until about 1962, then its collapse; Géoconfluences (ENS Lyon), glossary entry "Phylloxéra" — a peak of 2.3 million hectares in 1870 and 1.4 million in 1900, and vineyards already weakened before the crisis; Chaire UNESCO "Culture et traditions du vin," Université de Bourgogne, Comment le phylloxéra a changé la viticulture en Bourgogne et dans le monde ? (exhibition booklet) — production falling to a half or a third of normal for fifteen years; DGCCRF, "Le vin : mieux s'informer pour bien choisir" — ersatz wines made from water, sugar, flavorings or dried raisins after phylloxera. Sources disagree on the share of the vineyard lost: a quarter of the net area (Du Bled), a third (Meloni and Swinnen), about two fifths (Géoconfluences).

61 · How an American Aphid Nearly Killed Wine

Chaire UNESCO "Culture et traditions du vin," Université de Bourgogne, Comment le phylloxéra a changé la viticulture (cited above) — the insect's introduction around 1863 and a state prize never awarded despite more than 5,000 proposals; reviews of Christy Campbell, Phylloxera: How Wine Was Saved for the World (HarperCollins, 2004), by Malcolm Gluck in The Guardian (13 March 2004) and in The Daily Telegraph (8 and 14 March 2004) — the first outbreak at Roquemaure in the Gard from American vines imported in 1862, and toads among the remedies tried; Académie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier, "Jules-Émile Planchon" — the examination of the roots of affected vines by Planchon, Bazille and Sahut on 15 July 1868, and the state prize raised from 20,000 to 300,000 francs in 1874; Jean-Paul Legros, lecture on the discovery of phylloxera, Académie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier (1993) — the root aphid found by Bazille, Planchon and Sahut on 15 July 1868, Riley's confirmation that the French and American insects are one species, American vines brought in by nurserymen and collectors, the slow unraveling of the life cycle (Cornu 1878, Balbiani), and the exchanges of specimens and visits (Riley in Montpellier in 1871, Planchon in the United States in 1873); Jean-Paul Legros, "Les Américanistes du Languedoc 1868–1893," Étude et Gestion des Sols 12, no. 2 (2005): 165–186 — winter flooding for some forty days, carbon disulfide (costly, dangerous for people, lethal to the vine if overdosed), and the state prize raised to 300,000 francs in 1874, never awarded for want of a method usable on a large scale; "L'aventure inédite de l'hybridation et des hybrideurs de la vigne de 1824 à 1914," Crescentis (Université de Bourgogne) — the 300,000-franc prize never awarded. Sources disagree on the first French report: Legros dates it to Delorme near Arles (1866–67), Campbell, through his reviewers, to dying vines at Roquemaure in the early-to-mid 1860s.

62 · Grafting: The Miracle Solution

Jean-Paul Legros, "Les Américanistes du Languedoc 1868–1893" (cited above, Day 61) — carbon disulfide as costly and dangerous, the "foxy" taste of American vines, Bazille's first graft onto American stock in 1871 with cuttings from Laliman, the 1888 recommendation of grafting by the Commission supérieure du phylloxéra, and planting in very sandy soils (Aigues-Mortes); Jean-Paul Legros, lecture on the discovery of phylloxera (cited above, Day 61) — Laliman, grower and nurseryman, reporting at the Beaune congress of November 1869 that his American vines at Floirac were thriving, his later accusation of having brought in the insect, and several independent outbreaks around Bordeaux, so that his responsibility is shared; "L'aventure inédite de l'hybridation et des hybrideurs de la vigne de 1824 à 1914," Crescentis (cited above, Day 61) — the state prize never awarded; Chaire UNESCO "Culture et traditions du vin," Université de Bourgogne, Comment le phylloxéra a changé la viticulture (cited above, Day 60) — every wine region of the world now colonized by the insect except Chile. Campbell's reviewers report only that Laliman claimed the prize without success; no source gives a reason why his claim in particular was refused.

63 · Pasteur and the Science of Wine

Louis Pasteur, Études sur le vin, ses maladies, causes qui les provoquent, procédés nouveaux pour le conserver et pour le vieillir (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1866) — Napoleon III's encouragement in July 1863 to study the diseases of wine, and the book's title, date and subtitle; Institut Pasteur, "Deuxième époque : 1862-1877" — Pasteur's birth at Dole and the heating of wine to about 55–60°C to prevent its diseases; James A. Barnett, "Beginnings of Microbiology and Biochemistry: The Contribution of Yeast Research," Microbiology 149 (2003): 557–567 — yeast described as a living agent of fermentation by Cagniard-Latour, Kützing and Schwann in 1837, an idea ridiculed by Liebig and Wöhler, and established in the 1850s and 1860s; Commune de Montigny-lès-Arsures, "Présentation du vignoble" — Pasteur's first purchase of vines there on 17 November 1874, followed by others in 1879 and 1892; Pasteur family, "La vigne historique de Louis Pasteur" — his experiments on grape fermentation there in 1878, and the vineyard now owned by the Académie des sciences. Barnett credits Pasteur with establishing, not discovering, the living nature of fermentation.

64 · Fermentation: Understanding This Miracle at Last

CNRTL, etymology of ferment — Latin fermentum, linked to fervere, "to boil"; James A. Barnett, "Beginnings of Microbiology and Biochemistry" (cited above, Day 63) — the 1837 microscope observations of yeast and Pasteur's confirmation in the 1850s and 1860s; Duccio Cavalieri, Patrick E. McGovern, Daniel L. Hartl, Robert Mortimer and Mario Polsinelli, "Evidence for S. cerevisiae Fermentation in Ancient Wine," Journal of Molecular Evolution 57, suppl. 1 (2003): S226–S232 — S. cerevisiae DNA in one of the earliest Egyptian wine jars (by 3150 BC), the yeast's presence on the grape bloom, and its probable use for cereal products too. Cavalieri and colleagues present the link between Egyptian wine yeast and bread yeast as an inference, not a demonstration.

65 · The Birth of Modern Enology

Institut Pasteur, archives, biographical notice of Ulysse Gayon (1845–1929) — Gayon as agrégé-préparateur in Pasteur's laboratory at the École normale supérieure (1872–1875), and director of the Station agronomique et œnologique de la Gironde from 1880, succeeding A. Baudrimont; James A. Barnett, "Beginnings of Microbiology and Biochemistry" (cited above, Day 63) — Pasteur confirming and establishing the microbial account of fermentation; Œnologues de France, "Diplôme national d'œnologue — Université de Bordeaux" — the station's founding in 1880, its attachment to the University of Bordeaux in 1916, and the national diploma created by law no. 55-308 of 1955; "Le DNO en dates : 70 ans de réformes à l'écoute de la production," Revue française d'œnologie — the law of 19 March 1955 defining the title of enologist and the national diploma. Sources disagree on whether Gayon was the station's first director: one calls him so, the Institut Pasteur notice names a predecessor, Baudrimont.

66 · The Early Twentieth-Century Crisis: Overproduction and Fraud

Giulia Meloni and Johan Swinnen, "The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter" (cited above, Day 60) — overproduction and fraud after phylloxera, the 1905 fraud law, and the founding of the Confédération générale des vignerons in 1907; Hérodote.net, "19 juin 1907 : la révolte viticole vire au drame" — Marcelin Albert as café-keeper and winegrower at Argeliers, and "no fewer than 600,000" demonstrators; Rémy Pech, "La révolte des vignerons de 1907," Midi-Pyrénées Patrimoine, 76–83 — the march from Argeliers in March 1907, a mobilization "unmatched in modern French history," more than 600,000 at Montpellier on 9 June, the Narbonne shootings of 19–20 June, the mutiny of the 17th Infantry, Albert's meeting with Clemenceau on 23 June and the 100-franc note that discredited him; Law of 29 June 1907 (Légifrance) — harvest declarations and the repression of sugaring abuses; INAO, exhibition 90 ans, panel 4, "L'invention du système AOC" — the laws of 1905 and 1919 and the AOC system of 1935; CIRDOC, notice "Café de Marcelin Albert" — Albert discredited after 1907 and his death at Argeliers in 1921; Archives de Montpellier, "L'Esplanade" — the resignation of municipal councils, 442 municipalities in all; DGCCRF, "Le vin : mieux s'informer pour bien choisir" — the Griffe law of 1889 and the legal definition of wine. The Montpellier archives speak of municipal councils resigning, not of mayors alone. Sources disagree on the Narbonne death toll: six (Pech), seven (Hérodote); crowd estimates for Montpellier start at 600,000.

67 · Creating the AOC: Protecting the Terroirs

INAO, exhibition 90 ans, panel 4, "L'invention du système AOC" — the earlier laws of 1905, 1919 and 1927, the National Committee created by the 1935 decree-law and renamed INAO in 1947; Albin Denis, Les escadrilles de l'aéronautique militaire française, entry SPA 15 / SPA 78 — Le Roy de Boiseaumarié as a prewar lawyer, then a fighter pilot with five victories, the Médaille militaire and the Légion d'honneur; AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape, "Syndicat" — the growers' rules of 1923 drafted under Baron Le Roy (growing methods, minimum alcohol level, grape varieties, sorting); INAO, exhibition 90 ans, panels 17, "Joseph Capus," 14, "Délimitation Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1936," and 9, "Les six premières AOC" — Capus as deputy (1919–1928), minister of agriculture (1924) and senator (1930–1941), the decree-law of 30 July 1935, and the first AOCs of 15 May 1936 (Arbois, Cassis, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Cognac, Monbazillac, Tavel); INAO, "1905-1935 : les prémices des appellations d'origine" — the crisis of overproduction, falling prices and persistent fraud over origin in the 1930s; Giulia Meloni and Johan Swinnen, "The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter" (cited above, Day 60) — the 1935 law restricting yields and serving as a basis for the French AOC and Italian DOC systems; VinePair, "Châteauneuf-du-Pape's UFO Wine Law" — the 1954 municipal decree of mayor Lucien Jeune. The French system was not Europe's only model: Spain's Rioja had a designation of origin from 1925, a regulatory council from 1926 and rules from 1928 (Consejo Regulador DOCa Rioja, "Centenary").

68 · Wine During the World Wars

Ministère des Armées, "Vive le pinard" — the soldier's daily ration of a quarter-liter in October 1914, a half-liter in January 1916 and three-quarters of a liter in January 1918; "1914–1918 : les boissons des Poilus" — army consumption of 10 to 15 million hectoliters a year; Archives départementales de l'Aude, "L'Aude pendant la Première Guerre mondiale" — the pinard as the soldier's comfort, including before attacks, and 200,000 hectoliters offered to the army by Aude winegrowers from 1914; La Revue du vin de France, "Les vins de France à l'épreuve de l'occupation allemande" — the German wine officials, Bömers in Bordeaux, Seignitz in Burgundy and Klaebisch in Champagne, and the concealment of wines by growers and merchants; Union des Maisons de Champagne, Histoire du champagne, ch. 5, "La Première Guerre mondiale" — 1,051 days of bombardment of Reims, the population, schools and hospitals sheltered in the chalk cellars, and the work of women; Union des Maisons de Champagne, Histoire du champagne, "La Deuxième Guerre mondiale" — Otto Klaebisch, nicknamed the "führer du champagne," requisitions of 15 to 18 million bottles a year, and wine walled up in cellars or hidden; UPI, "Frenchman Who Found Hitler's Wine Dies," 31 October 2010 — Bernard de Nonancourt opening the cellar near the Eagle's Nest in 1945 and finding about half a million bottles of looted French wine; Giulia Meloni and Johan Swinnen, "The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter" (cited above, Day 60), with INAO, exhibition 90 ans, panel 4 — the AOC of 1935 after decades of fraud and the overproduction crisis of the early 1930s.

69 · Mechanization: Tractors in the Vines

Union des Maisons de Champagne, Histoire du champagne, "Les plantations," "L'entre-deux-guerres" and "Le temps de l'épanouissement" — rows 1 to 1.10 meters apart in Champagne, small tractors still rare there in 1939, and Vincent Ballu's straddle tractor (1947, series production from 1952) built for narrow rows; Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB) — Burgundy rows about a meter apart; Benson Ford Research Center, Ford Tractor Product Literature Collection — the Fordson in England from 1917–1918 and a factory at Cork in 1919; a study of the equipment of Languedoc winegrowers (ResearchGate) — Jean Buche's straddle tractor for Bobard, first series in 1957; Le Monde, "La machine à vendanger est entrée dans les vignes," 27 January 1971 — mechanical harvesters arriving in French vineyards; Naïo Technologies, "Ted," and VitiBot, "Bakus" (manufacturers' product pages) — autonomous electric straddle robots for the vineyard; IFCE, "Un nouveau guide pour intégrer la traction équine dans l'entretien des sols viticoles" — the return of horse traction in vineyards, notably to limit soil compaction. Sources differ on the first French straddle tractor: the Champagne houses credit Ballu (1947), the Languedoc study Buche and Bobard (1957).

70 · The Art of Blending: Creating Harmony

Château Margaux, "Le terroir" and "Grand Vin du Château Margaux" — 126 mapped plots, a blend led by cabernet sauvignon with merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot, and about 40 percent of the harvest kept for the Grand Vin; Krug, "Krug Grande Cuvée" (173rd Édition) — a blend of 150 wines from 13 different years, reserve wines making up 31 percent; Krug, "Grande Cuvée 154ème Édition" — reserve wines going back to 1988. The age of the oldest reserve wine varies by edition: 1988 for the 154th, 2001 for the 173rd.

Modern Wine (Days 71–78)

71 · Pesticides: Progress or Poison?

Rachel Carson Council, "Silent Spring" — for the book's publication on September 27, 1962, and its account of synthetic pesticides, DDT first, harming birds and wildlife; J.-N. Aubertot et al., eds., Pesticides, agriculture et environnement : réduire l'utilisation des pesticides et limiter leurs impacts environnementaux, joint scientific assessment, summary report (INRA and Cemagref, 2005) — for the vine's 3.7% of France's farmland and 20% of national pesticide use, mostly fungicides, on data for the year 2000; French Senate, Pesticides : vers le risque zéro, information report no. 42 (2012–2013) — for the same ratio, dated to 2000; INRAE Bordeaux-Aquitaine, "Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet" — for Millardet's 1882 observation of copper sprays in the Médoc and the formula of Bordeaux mixture, worked out with Ulysse Gayon and presented in 1885; BKWine, "EU lowers the limit for copper spray in the vineyards to 4 kg" (2018) — for the European cap of 4 kg of copper per hectare per year, averaged over seven years, down from 6 kg; Inserm, Pesticides et santé – Nouvelles données, collective expert report (2021), and Santé publique France and Anses, PestiRiv study (2025) — for pesticide exposure among agricultural workers and people living near treated vineyards as a documented public-health concern; INRAE, "Peut-on se passer du cuivre en agriculture biologique ?" and "La création variétale, une voie royale" — for copper and sulfur as crop-protection products permitted in organic viticulture but not without environmental impacts, and for copper accumulating in soils, which is why its use is regulated and growers seek to reduce the doses. Sources differ on the vine's share of farmland: the INRA–Cemagref assessment gives 3.7%, the Senate report (after Écophyto R&D) 3%; both rest on data for 2000, and no later figure was found.

72 · The 1980s Revolution: Technical Wine

Lallemand, "Celebrating 50 Years of Our Selected Wine Yeast" — for the first selected wine yeast sold in active dry form in 1974, with Scott Laboratories and strains from UC Davis; Wine Spectator, "Emile Peynaud, Who Influenced Winemaking Around the World, Dies at 92" (2004) — for Peynaud's consulting work in Bordeaux and abroad, his push for ripe grapes, new oak and temperature-controlled fermentation, and his line "Give me good grapes, and I will make good wines"; WISP, "The Rise of the Flying Winemakers" — for the term "flying winemaker," coined by Tony Laithwaite in the late 1980s for Australian winemakers sent to European cooperatives, and its later extension to consultants such as Michel Rolland; Decanter, "Heatwave vintages of the past" — for the stainless-steel vats installed at Château Haut-Brion in 1961; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Innovations in the Winery" — for stainless-steel vats spreading through modern wineries from the 1960s onward, making hygiene and temperature control much easier. The Peynaud line is reported secondhand, by his colleague Jacques Boissenot; no primary text of it was found.

73 · Robert Parker: The Man Who Changed the World's Taste

William Rice, "An Ombudsman for the Wine Consumer," The Washington Post (September 27, 1978) — for Parker as a young Baltimore lawyer, the advertising-free newsletter, tasting often blind and the 50-to-100-point scale; Baltimore Magazine, "The Wizard of Wine" — for Ralph Nader as the model for refusing advertising, and for the scale inspired by the grading system Parker knew from law school; Decanter, "1982 — A year to remember" — for Parker's enthusiastic judgment of the 1982 vintage, the critics who disagreed with him (Robert Finigan, Terry Robards), and a market that rose only gradually at first (opening prices up 15 to 25%), for several reasons; Vino Joy News, "Michelin fully acquires Robert Parker's Wine Advocate" (November 23, 2019) — for the founding of The Wine Advocate in 1978, the 2012 sale and Michelin's full ownership announced on November 22, 2019; The Guardian, "Vintage year? Not till the Nose says so" (November 19, 2000) — for the nickname "The Nose" and bottles jumping in price after his scores; Vinography, "Wine Critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. Officially Retires" (May 2019) — for the sale of a majority stake to Singapore-based investors in 2012, Michelin's 40% stake in 2017 and Parker's retirement in May 2019; The Independent, interview with Robert Parker (2015) — for "at least 10,000 wines a year" and "around 350,000 altogether"; Los Angeles Times (March 16, 2005) — for the million-dollar insurance on his nose and palate; no source names an insurer. The chapter's "modeled on the American school system" is broader than Baltimore Magazine, which names the law-school grading scale.

74 · Back to Terroir: Organic, Biodynamic, Natural

Jamie Goode, "Biodynamic wine: an audience with Nicolas Joly," wineanorak.com — for Joly's finance career in the United States and Britain, his return to the family estate in 1977 and his biodynamic practice from the early 1980s; La Coulée de Serrant, biography of Nicolas Joly — for his studies in the United States and finance career, his takeover of the estate in 1976, his discovery of biodynamics in 1980 and the estate's conversion in 1984; Demeter International, production standards — for the horn-manure preparation (500), cow manure fermented in a horn and applied after dilution at 50 to 300 g per hectare; Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 203/2012 of March 8, 2012 — for the first EU rules on organic winemaking, which cap sulfur dioxide (100 mg/l for dry reds, 150 mg/l for dry whites and rosés) without banning it; John Paull, "Biodynamic Agriculture: The Journey from Koberwitz to the World, 1924–1938," Journal of Organic Systems 6, no. 1 (2011) — for Rudolf Steiner's eight lectures at Koberwitz in 1924 as the founding of biodynamics; Syndicat de défense des vins nature'l, "FAQ – Vin Méthode Nature" — for the 2020 label, voluntary and recognized by the French authorities: organic grapes, hand harvest, indigenous yeasts, no added sulfites or under 30 mg/l; Jamie Goode, "Lapierre: visiting the natural hero of Beaujolais," wineanorak.com (2020) — for Marcel Lapierre taking over in 1973 and meeting Jules Chauvet in 1981; Réussir Vigne, "Vignes bio : les surfaces ont reculé de près de 8 % en 2025" (June 2026) — for Agence Bio data putting organic vineyards at about 20% of France's vineyard area. Sources differ on Joly's dates: Goode gives his return in 1977 and biodynamics from "the early 1980s"; the estate's own biography gives 1976, 1980 and 1984, the dates the chapter keeps; other accounts give the Clos converted in 1981 and the whole estate in 1984.

75 · Climate Change: Winemaking's New Challenge

Franceinfo, "Vendanges plus précoces, vins plus alcoolisés…" (2025) — for harvests about three weeks earlier than in the 1980s and Languedoc wines averaging nearly 14% alcohol since 2015, against about 11% in the 1980s; Thomas Labbé et al., "The longest homogeneous series of grape harvest dates, Beaune 1354–2018, and its significance for the understanding of past and present climate," Climate of the Past 15 (2019) — for the long-run baseline (average harvest on September 28 from 1354 to 1987) and the recent shift; Winetitles, "Bordeaux receives national approval to introduce six new grape varieties in 2021" — for INAO approval of six varieties, touriga nacional among them, in the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur appellations, limited to 5% of plantings and 10% of the blend; A. G. Brown, I. Meadows, S. D. Turner and D. J. Mattingly, "Roman vineyards in Britain: stratigraphic and palynological data from Wollaston in the Nene Valley, England," Antiquity 75, no. 290 (2001) — for large-scale Roman viticulture in Northamptonshire; Hull Domesday Project, "Vineyard," after H. C. Darby, Domesday England (Cambridge University Press, 1977), Appendix 15 — for vineyards recorded at 45 places in the Domesday Book of 1086; INRAE, "Les vins d'appellation vont-ils disparaître ou renaître avec le changement climatique ?" — for harvests more than three weeks earlier than in the 1980s; DRAAF Occitanie, wine-harvest forecasts for 2022 — for first harvests in the region at the end of July; British Geological Survey, "A stratigraphical framework for the Upper Cretaceous Chalk of England" — for the Cretaceous chalk under parts of Sussex, Kent and Hampshire, comparable to that of Champagne; Taittinger, "Evremond" — for today's English wine as a revival after centuries of decline. Sources differ on the size of the shift: Labbé et al. measure harvests 13 days earlier at Beaune from 1988 to 2018, Franceinfo reports about three weeks against the 1980s; the Domesday count varies with the counting method.

76 · Soils and Climates: The Magic of Terroir Decoded

Bureau interprofessionnel des vins de Bourgogne, "Chablis – Special soil" — for the Kimmeridgian marls of about 150 million years, rich in Exogyra virgula fossils, under Chablis, Premier Cru and Grand Cru; AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape, "Le terroir" — for the rolled pebbles that store the day's heat, release it toward the grapes and help them ripen; France Today, "Burgundy's Famed Climats Celebrate 10 Years of UNESCO Recognition" (2025) — for the Cistercian foundation of 1098, the walled Clos de Vougeot, and the word climat taking the sense of "a specific plot" only by the Renaissance; Jean-Pierre Garcia, "Non, les moines n'ont pas goûté la terre pour délimiter les terroirs viticoles de Bourgogne," Crescentis — for the absence of any archival trace of monks mapping tastes, a modern story; Inter Beaujolais, "Chiroubles" — for gamay on granitic soils, Chiroubles lying on pink granite. The Chablis interprofession ties "minerality" to the soil alone; the chapter's wider attribution (soil, climate and practice) is more cautious than that source.

77 · Aging Wine: Barrel, Vat, Amphora

Vitisphere, "Un tonneau à moins de 700 € ?" — for coopers' budget barrels under €700 sold as cheaper alternatives to the standard 225-liter barrique; Patrick E. McGovern et al., "Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 48 (2017) — for wine residues in large jars of about 6000–5800 BC, and for Iron Age (eighth to seventh century BC) as the earliest archaeological evidence of qvevri winemaking; WSET, "Qvevri: the ancient vessel at the heart of Georgian winemaking" (2026) — for the qvevri as an egg-shaped clay vessel, often lined with beeswax and buried, and UNESCO's 2013 inscription of qvevri winemaking; Scotch Whisky Association, "Q&A: Allowable casks for the maturation of Scotch Whisky" — for the casks allowed for maturing Scotch, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry among them; Glenmorangie, "The Nectar," and Arran, "Sauternes Wine Cask Finish" — for whiskies finished in Sauternes casks; Decanter, "Heatwave vintages of the past," and Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Innovations in the Winery" — for stainless steel spreading through modern wineries from the 1960s onward (Haut-Brion in 1961). The new-barrel price rests on an indirect source: Vitisphere implies the standard barrique costs more than €700, so the chapter's €800 is a low-end order of magnitude.

78 · Today's Trends: Orange, Pét-Nat, Volcanic Wines

UNESCO, "Ancient Georgian traditional Qvevri wine-making method" (2013) — for Georgia's ancient tradition of fermenting wine in buried clay qvevri together with the grape skins and other solid parts; Decanter, "Orange wines: it's time to get in touch" — for the term "orange wine," coined in 2004 by the British wine importer David Harvey; Robert Camuto, "Orange Crush: Radikon Winery Passes from Father to Son," Wine Spectator — for Stanko Radikon's return to skin maceration in 1995, alongside Josko Gravner, at Oslavia in Friuli; France Today, "Crémant de Limoux: France's First Sparkling Wine Region" — for the 1544 letter ordering Limoux blanquette for the lord of Arques; Archives départementales de l'Aude, on the blanquette de Limoux — for 1544 as the first mention of the name, with no proof that the wine was then sparkling; La Ramoneta, "Abbaye de Saint-Hilaire and the Sparkling Wine Legend," treats that date as a legend, and the 1544 document does not mention bubbles.

The Wines of the World (Days 79–93)

79 · Modern Bordeaux: Beyond the Grands Crus

Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), L'essentiel des vins de Bordeaux, édition 2025 (2025) — Bordeaux as the largest appellation (AOP) vineyard in France, a little under 95,000 ha of AOP vines in 2024, 4,637 grower-producers, an average supermarket price of €6.28 a bottle in 2024, a quarter of the area organic or in conversion (27,000 ha, tripled in five years), and merlot at 66% of the red varieties; CIVB, "Préservons l'environnement" — Bordeaux as France's largest AOC vineyard; Jean-Claude Hinnewinkel, "De nouvelles conditions de production pour les vins de Bordeaux" (2000) — the difficult market around the turn of the millennium and the growing competition from the Languedoc and from New World producers such as Chile; Cavistes & Co, "Bordeaux passe sous les 80 000 ha et diversifie son offre" (2026) — the CIVB's April 2026 press conference: 86,000 ha declared in 2025 and fewer than 80,000 expected in 2026, against more than 120,000 in 2007, with sales down to 3.4 million hl in 2024–25, hence the uprootings; Winetitles, "Bordeaux Receives National Approval to Introduce Six New Grape Varieties in 2021" — INAO approval of touriga nacional, among six new varieties, in the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur appellations, limited to 5% of planted area and 10% of the blend. The area shrinks every year, so the CIVB's 2024 figure and the 2026 press conference differ for that reason alone; any figure has to be read with its date.

80 · Burgundy: A Mosaic of Climats

Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB), "Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne inscrits au Patrimoine mondial" — the strip of about sixty kilometers along the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune, "more than a thousand" climats, the role of the medieval monks, and the UNESCO inscription of July 4, 2015; UNESCO, "Les Climats du vignoble de Bourgogne", and Association des Climats du vignoble de Bourgogne, "Qu'est-ce qu'un Climat ?" — the parcels identified from the High Middle Ages by Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries, later joined by the dukes of Burgundy and the growers, and the word climat from the Greek klima (inclination); BIVB, "Romanée-Conti" — a grand cru of 1.81 ha producing about 6,118 bottles a year; Guinness World Records, "Most Expensive White Wine" — the record belongs to a Château d'Yquem 1811 (2011), so Montrachet is one of the most expensive white wines, not the most expensive; BIVB, Les chiffres clés de la Bourgogne viticole (April 2021, 2015–2019 averages) — chardonnay 51%, pinot noir 39.5%, aligoté 6%, gamay and others 3.5%, and the hierarchy of 84 appellations, 33 of them grands crus. Sources differ on the count of climats: the UNESCO nomination material gives 1,247, the BIVB "more than a thousand"; and the inscribed property runs slightly beyond the Côte-d'Or into Saône-et-Loire (Maranges).

81 · Champagne: The Empire of Bubbles

CIVB, L'essentiel des vins de Bordeaux, édition 2025 (2025), comparative table of French vineyards — Champagne, 33,700 ha of AOP vines in 2024; Mission Coteaux, Maisons et Caves de Champagne, "The Oldest Champagne House" — the Ruinart crayères on the Saint-Nicaise hill in Reims, part of the World Heritage property, the highest of them 38 meters high, galleries dug from 1768 and in 1830–1860 in quarries described as medieval; Comité Champagne, "L'appellation" — the AOC recognized on June 29, 1936, and the name protected in more than 130 countries; Comité Champagne, "The soil in Champagne" — chalk from marine deposits of about 90 million years ago; Comité Champagne, "Grape varieties", and Cahier des charges de l'AOC Champagne (Légifrance) — besides the three main varieties, five others authorized (arbane, petit meslier, chardonnay rose, pinot blanc, pinot gris), together 0.3% of the vineyard; Comité Champagne, Champagne: 2025 Shipment Review and Outlook (January 2026) — 266 million bottles shipped in 2025. Sources disagree on the age of the crayères: the Ruinart house dates them to the Gallo-Roman period, the World Heritage mission describes medieval quarries, hence the chapter's "are said to."

82 · The Rhône Valley: From North to South

Inter Rhône, Key Figures 2024 (2025) — 65,203 ha (five-year average) and the rank of second-largest AOP vineyard in France after Bordeaux; Château Palmer, "A Few Drops from the Rhône" — the practice of adding Hermitage to some clarets to strengthen their color and structure, openly tolerated (bottles labeled "hermitagé"); AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape, "Le terroir" — the rolled pebbles that store the day's heat and give it back to the grapes; Syndicat des vignerons de Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Cahier des charges de l'AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape (decree of November 16, 2011; 2023 version) — eighteen authorized varieties, thirteen if the color variants of grenache, piquepoul, and clairette are counted once, with no minimum share for grenache; J. E. Bowers, R. Siret, C. P. Meredith, P. This, and J.-M. Boursiquot, "A Single Pair of Parents Proposed for a Group of Grapevine Varieties in Northeastern France," Acta Horticulturae 528 (2000), doi:10.17660/ActaHortic.2000.528.15 — syrah born of dureza × mondeuse blanche. The chapter no longer dates the "hermitaging" of Bordeaux; Château Palmer places it in the nineteenth century. The DNA work dates from the late 1990s, but its publication in Acta Horticulturae is dated 2000.

83 · Loire Valley and Alsace: French Diversity

InterLoire, Livret Pro Vins de Loire (October 2024) — 800 km of vineyards along the river and 34 appellations; INAO, Cahier des charges de l'AOC Château-Grillet (2023) — the "Vin du Rhin" bottle (flûte d'Alsace) defined by decree no. 55-673 of May 20, 1955, and reserved to eight AOC wines, Château-Grillet among them; Vitisphere, "La flûte ne sera plus la seule bouteille des vins d'Alsace" (March 23, 2024) — the flûte imposed on Alsace wines since 1955, and the adoption in 2024 of two other bottle shapes.

84 · Italy's Vineyards: Far More Than Tuscany

International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024 (April 2025) — Italy the world's leading producer in 2024 with 44.1 million hl (19.5% of world output), ahead of France (36.1) and Spain (31.0); CREA / Ministero dell'Agricoltura (MASAF), Registro Nazionale delle Varietà di Vite — 461 registered wine-grape varieties; UNESCO, "Mount Etna" (World Heritage List, 2013) — one of the world's most active volcanoes; OIV, "OIV Releases 2025 World Wine Production First Estimates" (press release, November 12, 2025) — Italy still first in 2025 (47.3 million hl), ahead of France (35.9) and Spain (29.4); UC Davis Foundation Plant Services — primitivo, zinfandel, crljenak kaštelanski, and tribidrag share the same DNA profile; Anna Riccardi Candiani, archival research summarized in The Years of the Grape, "Louis Oudart, the French Oenologist Who Invented Barolo. Or Did He?" (2015) — no document links Oudart, a wine merchant based in Genoa, to Barolo, while General Paolo Francesco Staglieno, working at Grinzane from 1836, advocated complete (dry) fermentation in an 1837 treatise. The Oudart story, popularized in 1937 and still widely repeated, is contradicted by this archival work.

85 · Spain: From Rioja to Ribera

OIV, State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024 (April 2025) — Spain the largest vineyard in the world with 930,000 ha in 2024, ahead of France (783,000) and Italy (728,000); Consejo Regulador DOCa Rioja, history and classification — Bordeaux-style winemaking and barrel aging introduced by Luciano Murrieta (1852) and the Marqués de Riscal, and the minimum aging rules (crianza, two years including one in barrel; reserva, three years including one in barrel and six months in bottle; gran reserva, five years including two in barrel and two in bottle); Vega Sicilia — the estate founded in 1864 by Eloy Lecanda, and Único released after ten years or more; Christie's, lot "Vega Sicilia Unico 1920" — the 1970 Único, sixteen years in barrel, put on sale in 1995; Familia Fernández Rivera — Pesquera founded in 1972.

86 · Portugal and Germany: Tradition and Renewal

Wines of Portugal (ViniPortugal), home page — "more than 250" native grape varieties; UNESCO, "Alto Douro Wine Region" (World Heritage List, no. 1046) — inscription in 2001.

87 · The New World: How Everything Changed

California State Parks, "Mission San Diego de Alcalá" — the first California mission founded on July 16, 1769; State Library of New South Wales, "Wine" — vine cuttings taken on board at Rio de Janeiro by the First Fleet and planted in 1788; Wines of South Africa — the first vines planted at the Cape in 1655 and the first wine pressed on February 2, 1659, under Jan van Riebeeck; OIV, State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024 (April 2025) — shares of world production in 2024: United States 9.4%, Argentina 4.8%, Australia 4.5%, Chile 4.1%, South Africa 3.9%, New Zealand 1.3%, Brazil 0.9%, about 29% in all; Government of Argentina — Michel Aimé Pouget and the Quinta Normal de Mendoza, April 17, 1853; Maison du Vin de Cahors — the frost of 1956, which destroyed about 99% of the Cahors vineyard.

88 · California: From the Gold Rush to the Cult of Wine

Wine Institute, "California & US Wine Production" — California's share of US wine output: 78.5% in 2024, 80.4% in 2023, 79.3% in 2022, 81% on average; California State Parks, "Mission San Diego de Alcalá" — founded on July 16, 1769; California State Parks, "San Francisco Solano Mission Vineyard" — the mission vineyard at Sonoma, planted in 1825; UC Davis Library, "A short history on wine making in California" — the chain of Franciscan missions and their vineyards; California State Parks, "Gold Discovery Site" — gold found in January 1848; Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine in America (University of California Press), chapter "The Haraszthy Legend" — the title of "father of Californian viticulture" and its questioning by historians; UC Davis, Department of Viticulture and Enology, "History" — the department's role in rebuilding California winemaking after Prohibition (1935); Sonoma State University — Haraszthy's 1861 mission, more than 100,000 cuttings of about 350 varieties; Buena Vista Winery — founded in Sonoma in 1857 by the "self-proclaimed Count" Haraszthy; Robert Mondavi Winery — the winery opened at Oakville in 1966; UC Davis Foundation Plant Services — zinfandel, primitivo, crljenak kaštelanski, and tribidrag share the same DNA profile, of Croatian origin. The "about 80%" of the chapter is an average: the share fell to 78.5% in 2024, the year of California's smallest grape harvest since 2004 (OIV, State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024).

89 · The Judgment of Paris 1976: The Day America Won

Smithsonian National Museum of American History — the tasting of May 24, 1976, organized by Steven Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher in the year of the American Bicentennial, the winning Château Montelena and Stag's Leap 1973 bottles in its collections, and George Taber as the only journalist present; Time, "Modern Living: Judgment of Paris" (June 7, 1976; unsigned, reported by George M. Taber) — the nine French judges, among them Pierre Tari and Raymond Oliver, Château Montelena first among the whites and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars first among the reds; Stefan K. Estreicher, "Wine and France: A Brief History," European Review (Cambridge University Press, 2023) — Pierre Brejoux, inspector general of the INAO, the only member of that institute on the jury; Bacigalupi Vineyards, "Bacigalupi Vineyards and the Judgement of Paris" — the 1973 Montelena chardonnay made from about 40 tons of grapes, 14 from Bacigalupi (Russian River Valley) and 20 from Henry Dick (Alexander Valley) in Sonoma, 5 from Napa growers; George M. Taber, interview with NPR/KPBS (May 24, 2016) — Odette Kahn of the Revue du vin de France asking, in vain, for her scorecard back; "Tracking the Wines of the Judgment of Paris over Time," Journal of Wine Economics (2022) — the sensitivity of the ranking to the method used to aggregate the scores. Time gives the winning red as a 1972 and credits Spurrier's Académie du Vin with the tasting; the Smithsonian and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars ("Our Story") give the 1973 vintage.

90 · The Southern Hemisphere: Chile, Argentina, Australia

Servicio Agrícola y Ganadero (SAG), Resolución exenta n° 1376/2024 (February 27, 2024), amending Resolution 3080 of 2003, art. 20 — Viteus (=Daktulosphaira) vitifoliae, phylloxera, listed among the quarantine pests absent from the national territory of Chile; Visit Argentina, "Bodega Séptima" — vineyards at 1,050 m in Agrelo, Mendoza; Wine Australia, Old Vines Educator Guide, "A Brief History" — James Busby's collection of 1832; Maison du Vin de Cahors — the 1956 frost, which destroyed about 99% of the Cahors vineyard; Government of Argentina — Michel Aimé Pouget and the Quinta Normal de Mendoza, April 17, 1853; Viña Carmen — the identification of carménère by Jean-Michel Boursiquot on November 24, 1994, and the first wine under that name in 1996; Penfolds, "The Rewards of Patience" — Grange first made in 1951, production ordered stopped in 1957 by the management and discreetly continued until 1959; Langmeil Winery, home page — the Freedom 1843 Shiraz vineyard, "believed to be planted in 1843" by Christian Auricht and "believed to be the world's oldest surviving Shiraz vineyard." The 1843 date is a family tradition, presented as such by the estate itself.

91 · New Zealand and South Africa

LVMH, "Cloudy Bay" — the estate founded in 1985; New Zealand Winegrowers, "Discover: Central Otago" — the country's southernmost wine region, among the southernmost commercial wine-growing areas in the world; Jamie Goode, "40 Years of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc," Wine Anorak (2025) — Cloudy Bay launched in 1985 by David Hohnen with Kevin Judd, its first vintage made from 40 tons of bought grapes, its own winery built in 1986; New Zealand Winegrowers — Samuel Marsden's planting at Kerikeri on September 25, 1819, the Screwcap Initiative of 2001, and more than 95% of New Zealand wine under screw cap; OIV, State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024 (April 2025) — New Zealand produced 2.8 million hl and exported 2.7 million in 2024; Wines of South Africa — the first Cape wine pressed on February 2, 1659; Groot Constantia — the Constantia wine sent to Napoleon on Saint Helena; Pinotage Association — the pinot noir × cinsault (Hermitage) cross made on November 17, 1924, its seeds planted in 1925. New Zealand Winegrowers gives a higher screw-cap share (more than 95%) than the chapter's cautious "more than 90%."

92 · Asian Wine: China, Japan, India

Decanter, Decanter World Wine Awards 2011 — the International Trophy (Red Bordeaux Varietal over £10) won by Helan Qingxue's Jia Bei Lan 2009, from Ningxia; OIV, State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024 (April 2025) — China's vineyard the third largest in the world (753,000 ha, mostly table grapes), and its wine output down to 2.6 million hl in 2024, 53% below the five-year average; N. Goto-Yamamoto et al., "Genetic Analysis of East Asian Grape Cultivars Suggests Hybridization with Wild Vitis," PLOS ONE (2015) — koshu, of mainly vinifera ancestry with an East Asian contribution; Yamanashi Prefecture, Koshu Pride — koshu grown in Yamanashi, around Katsunuma, for more than a thousand years; N. Wan et al., "Overwintering Covered with Soil or Avoiding Burial of Wine Grapes under Cold Stress," Stress Biology 3, 40 (2023) — 87.5% of China's wine grapes in the zone where vines are buried in winter, a costly, labor-intensive operation, now semi-mechanized or mechanized, that can damage the vines; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, "Sector Trend Analysis – Beer, Wine and Spirits in India" — spirits, whisky foremost, dominant in India; Sula Vineyards — founded by Rajeev Samant in Nashik in 1999. For China's vineyard area, the OIV's 2025 data give 733,000 ha (still third in the world, with 43% of the world's table grapes), against 753,000 ha in the 2024 report.

93 · The New Terroirs: England, Belgium, Scandinavia

Jancis Robinson, "English Fizz Trumps Champagne in Blind Tasting" (October 2015) — the blind tasting of twelve sparkling wines held on September 28, 2015, at The Marksman in London, where Hambledon and Nyetimber finished ahead of Pol Roger and Taittinger; British Geological Survey, "A Stratigraphical Framework for the Upper Cretaceous Chalk of England" — the Cretaceous chalk of southern England; WineGB, Data — 4,840.91 ha under vine, 1,158 vineyards, 280 wineries, and 16.5 million bottles from the 2025 harvest; Gusbourne, "Timeline" — the estate founded in 2004; Domaine Evremond, "Who We Are," and Taittinger, "Evremond" — Taittinger's estate in Kent; Louis Pommery England — Pommery's Pinglestone estate in Hampshire, about 40 ha; SPF Économie (Statbel), "2025, année pétillante pour le vin belge" (March 2026) — 350 winegrowers and about 1,040 ha of vines in Belgium in 2025; Chant d'Éole — a Walloon sparkling-wine estate; A. G. Brown, I. Meadows, S. D. Turner, and D. J. Mattingly, "Roman Vineyards in Britain: Stratigraphic and Palynological Data from Wollaston in the Nene Valley, England," Antiquity 75, no. 290 (2001) — Roman viticulture on a large scale in Northamptonshire; Ann J. Samuelsen, "The Growth of Vineyards in Northern Europe," Wine, Food & Friends (International Wine & Food Society), Summer 2024 — commercial vineyards in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, mostly planted with fungus-resistant PIWI grapes such as solaris, and Lerkekåsa in Norway, on the 59th parallel, as the most northerly commercial vineyard.

Understanding and Enjoying (Days 94–100)

94 · Star Grapes: Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot, Chardonnay

OIV, Focus OIV 2017: Distribution of the World's Grapevine Varieties (International Organisation of Vine and Wine, 2017) — 2015 figures that rank cabernet sauvignon (341,000 ha) and merlot (266,000 ha) as the two most planted wine grapes, ahead of tempranillo, airén, chardonnay, syrah and grenache, with pinot noir far behind (112,000 ha): a large share of the world's vines, but not all four among the most planted; Foundation Plant Services (UC Davis), "Black Grapes of Bordeaux," online Grape Book — cabernet sauvignon as a late-budding, late-ripening, thick-skinned variety; John E. Bowers and Carole P. Meredith, "The Parentage of a Classic Wine Grape, Cabernet Sauvignon," Nature Genetics 16 (1997) — microsatellite DNA showing that cabernet sauvignon is the offspring of cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc, grown in Bordeaux since at least the seventeenth century; University of California, Davis, "Cabernet Sauvignon's Long Memory Revealed," UC Davis News (2025) — credits Meredith with the 1997 discovery and dates the cross to about 400 years ago; Great Bordeaux Wines, "Petrus" (producer profile) — Pétrus made (almost) entirely from merlot; Millésima USA, "Château Cheval Blanc 2022" (technical sheet) — a leading Saint-Émilion blended from merlot and cabernet franc (53% / 46% in 2022), so merlot dominates there without reigning alone; D. Maghradze et al., "Georgian Grapevine Cultivars: Ancient Biodiversity for Future Viticulture," Frontiers in Plant Science (2021) — a Georgian viticultural tradition that stretches back millennia, which the chapter sets beside cabernet sauvignon's three to four centuries (the age of any single Georgian variety is not given). Sources differ on the date of origin: Bowers and Meredith have cabernet sauvignon grown in Bordeaux at least since the seventeenth century, while the Foundation Plant Services page notes that written references to it appear only in the eighteenth century, well after cabernet franc.

95 · Forgotten Grapes: The Return of the Old Varieties

CepAtlas, "Plants, raisins puis cépages dans les archives des 18e et 19e siècles" — some 6,000 occurrences of variety names in the surveys of 1782–1784 and more than 2,000 in the Luxembourg collection, with the caution that a recorded name is not a distinct variety: hence "hundreds" of varieties in the nineteenth-century vineyard; OIV, Focus OIV 2017: Distribution of the World's Grapevine Varieties (International Organisation of Vine and Wine, 2017) — of about 10,000 known varieties, 13 cover more than a third of the world's vineyard area and 33 cover half; Yann Kerveno, "Vieux cépages : la renaissance (2)," Sesame (INRAE, 2018) — Plaimont's conservatory, the near-disappearance and revival of manseng noir, and the registration of tardif in the French catalogue in late 2017; Institut français de la vigne et du vin (IFV) Occitanie, "La saga des cépages du Sud-Ouest : diversité et origine" (2024) — the ungrafted Sarragachies plot (21 varieties), entered in the inventory of historic monuments in 2012; Wine Industry Advisor, "Bordeaux Receives National Approval to Introduce Six New Red and White Grape Varieties in 2021" (2021) — arinarnoa, castets, marselan, touriga nacional, alvarinho and liliorila, approved by INAO for Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur as varieties for climate adaptation, capped at 5% of the planted area and 10% of the blend; Vin de France, "Marselan" (grape-variety page) — marselan as a recent INRA cross of cabernet sauvignon and grenache (1961); AOC specifications (cahiers des charges), e.g. AOC Champagne (Légifrance) — each appellation sets the list of grape varieties allowed in wines that claim it. The OIV's figure of 10,000 counts known varieties; the same report estimates the number of genuinely distinct vinifera varieties at about 6,000 once synonyms are removed.

96 · Red, White, Rosé: The Secrets of Winemaking

A. A. Watrelot and N. Delchier, "How Does Extended Maceration Affect Tannin and Color of Red Wines from Cold-Hardy Grape Cultivars?," Foods (2025) — anthocyanins (color) are water-soluble and come out in the first days of fermentation, while tannins are extracted later and more easily as ethanol rises; European Commission, Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/934, Articles 7–8 (2019) — bans making rosé by blending white and red wines without PDO/PGI status, except for a cuvée intended for sparkling or semi-sparkling wine; United States, Code of Federal Regulations, Title 27, § 4.21 (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, standards of identity) — defines American "pink (or rosé) wine" by its color, not by its method of production; BKWine Magazine, "How Do You Make Rosé? Facts and Fails" — direct pressing, short maceration and saignée (drawing off juice after a few hours to a few days); Li M.-Y. et al., "Cluster Bagging Modifies Flavonoid Profiles in Teinturier Grape Garnacha Tintorera," Food Chemistry: X (2026) — teinturier grapes (Garnacha Tintorera, i.e. alicante bouschet) accumulate pigments in both skin and pulp. The EU ban formally targets wines without PDO/PGI status and exempts all sparkling wines, not only champagne, which is why the chapter says "generally."

97 · Bubbles and Sparkling Wines: Methods and Mysteries

Gérard Liger-Belair et al., "Losses of Yeast-Fermented Carbon Dioxide during Prolonged Champagne Aging: Yes, the Bottle Size Does Matter!," ACS Omega (2023) — the prise de mousse (about two months, started with 22–24 g/L of sugar), a pressure of about 6 bar at 12°C, and a minimum of fifteen months on the lees for champagne; Clara Cilindre et al., "Does the Temperature of the Prise de Mousse Affect the Effervescence and the Foam of Sparkling Wines?," Molecules (2021) — minimum lees aging of nine months for Crémant de Loire and fifteen months for champagne; Consorzio di Tutela della DOC Prosecco, "Winemaking" (official page) — the Martinotti/Charmat second fermentation in pressurized tanks, lasting at least 30 days (60 for rosé); Inter Rhône, "AOC Clairette de Die" (official page) — the ancestral method, in which the must is bottled before fermentation is complete, with no added sugar; Anna Just-Borràs et al., "Comparison of Ancestral and Traditional Methods for Elaborating Sparkling Wines," Current Research in Food Science (2024) — the ancestral method as a single fermentation that finishes in the bottle; Gérard Liger-Belair and Clara Cilindre, "How Many CO₂ Bubbles in a Glass of Beer?," ACS Omega (2021) — about one million bubbles form when 100 mL of champagne is poured straight into a flute, and far fewer with a gentle, tilted pour; Gérard Liger-Belair, "How Many Bubbles in Your Glass of Bubbly?," Journal of Physical Chemistry B (2014), and the American Chemical Society press release on it (EurekAlert) — the long-quoted figure of about 15 million bubbles per glass, revised to about one million; INAO, "Crémant d'Alsace" (appellation page), and the specification of AOC "Crémant de Bourgogne" (French ministerial order of September 2, 2026, Légifrance) — both crémants made by the traditional method, under their own specifications. One received idea does not hold: in the Just-Borràs trial, the ancestral-method wines had smaller bubbles and less aggressive CO₂ than the traditional-method wine, against the common picture of coarse, irregular ancestral bubbles.

98 · Tasting: See, Smell, Taste

E. M. Goldberg et al., "Factors Affecting the Ortho- and Retronasal Perception of Flavors: A Review," Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition (2018) — olfaction as a critical part of flavor perception; J. James et al., "Beyond Aroma: A Scoping Review on the Impact of Chronic Rhinosinusitis on Retronasal Olfaction," Frontiers in Allergy (2022) — retronasal olfaction as odorants from the mouth reaching the olfactory receptors through the nasopharynx, essential to flavor; Caroline Bushdid, Marcelo O. Magnasco, Leslie B. Vosshall and Andreas Keller, "Humans Can Discriminate More than 1 Trillion Olfactory Stimuli," Science (2014) — the original claim of at least a trillion; Richard C. Gerkin and Jason B. Castro, "The Number of Olfactory Stimuli That Humans Can Discriminate Is Still Unknown," eLife (2015) — the estimate is fragile and the formula actually gives an upper bound; Markus Meister, "On the Dimensionality of Odor Space," eLife (2015) — argues that the trillion figure is wrong. The sources agree that smell dominates flavor but give no reliable percentage, so the chapter gives none; on the trillion figure, Bushdid et al. are contradicted by Gerkin and Castro and by Meister.

99 · Serving, Storing, Buying: The Practical Guide

Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), "Ideal Serving Temperatures and Top Tips for Wine Storage" — full-bodied reds at 15–18°C (59–64°F), full-bodied whites at 10–13°C (50–55°F), and nothing served below 6°C (43°F); Comité Champagne, "Storing Champagne Bottles" (official page) — champagne served at about 8–10°C (46–50°F), and bottles stored at a constant 10–15°C (50–59°F), away from light, vibration and odors; Robin Goldstein, Johan Almenberg, Anna Dreber, John W. Emerson, Alexis Herschkowitsch and Jacob Katz, Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better? Evidence from a Large Sample of Blind Tastings, AAWE Working Paper No. 16 (American Association of Wine Economists, 2008) — over more than 6,000 blind tastings, a small negative price–rating correlation for ordinary drinkers but a positive one for people with wine training; T. Hummel, J. F. Delwiche, C. Schmidt and K.-B. Hüttenbrink, "Effects of the Form of Glasses on the Perception of Wine Flavors: A Study in Untrained Subjects," Appetite (2003) — glass shape changes the ratings of wine odors, independently of how the glass looks; CNRTL (Trésor de la langue française informatisé), s.v. "chambrer" — bringing a wine to the temperature of the room, an expression from a time when rooms were cooler than today's heated homes; Decanter, "How to Let a Wine Breathe, and When" and "When Should You Drink Wine after Decanting It?" — simply uncorking aerates a wine only slowly through the small surface in the neck, while decanting greatly increases its contact with air; Robin Goldstein et al., "Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better? Evidence from a Large Sample of Blind Tastings," Journal of Wine Economics 3, no. 1 (2008) — published version of the working paper above, which supports the chapter's claim that a well-chosen modest wine can beat a far more expensive label. The chapter's ranges round those of WSET, which starts full-bodied reds at 15°C and puts full-bodied whites at 10–13°C; the Comité Champagne allows champagne to be stored upright or on its side, whereas the chapter's advice to lay bottles down concerns natural corks in prolonged storage.

100 · And Now? Your Journey Is Just Beginning

Patrick McGovern et al., "Early Neolithic Wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017) — the earliest chemical evidence of grape wine, in large jars in Georgia around 6000–5800 BC, about 8,000 years ago; Jean-Pierre Garcia, "Non, les moines n'ont pas goûté la terre pour délimiter les terroirs viticoles de Bourgogne," Crescentis — no archival trace of Cîteaux monks tasting the soil: a modern story that goes back to Hugh Johnson (1989); INRAE, "Phylloxera: Genomics Sheds Light on the History of the Invasion of French Vines" (2020) — phylloxera, an insect related to aphids, came from North America (probably the upper Mississippi) and destroyed about half of the French vineyard; TIME, article for the fortieth anniversary of the Judgment of Paris (2016) — the tasting of May 24, 1976, where Stag's Leap 1973 cabernet sauvignon beat the Bordeaux reds and Château Montelena 1973 chardonnay beat the white Burgundies before French judges; Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon (Perseus Digital Library), s.v. symposion — "drinking-party," the origin of "symposium." On the scale of the phylloxera disaster, the chapter follows INRAE (about half of French vines destroyed); Day 60 gives a different measure, a shrinkage of the planted area by a quarter to two fifths between the 1870s and 1900, depending on the estimate.