Wine History

Wine — fermented grape juice — has been produced for approximately 8,000 years. The earliest evidence comes from Georgia (the Caucasus) around 6000 BCE. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans considered wine fundamental to civilization; the Greeks spread viticulture across the Mediterranean; Rome established vineyards in France, Spain, Germany, and Britain. French wine regions — Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Rhône, Loire, Alsace — became the world's quality benchmarks during the 17th–19th centuries. The 1855 Bordeaux classification established a hierarchy still used. The 1976 'Judgment of Paris' — a blind tasting where California wines beat French — shocked the wine world and legitimized New World wine. Today, global wine production is 260 million hectoliters; Italy, Spain, and France are the top producers.