Wine

Wine is an intoxicating drink which is created by the fermentation of the fruits juices specially grapes. There are number of fruits like elderberry, plum and blackcurrant which are also fermented but grapes are physically and chemically reasonable to ferment entirely without needing surplus acids, sugars, nutrients and enzymes. Non-grape wines are also known as country wine or fruit wine.

Other products are prepared from starch based materials like rice wine, barley wine and appear like beers. Drinks which are made from other material like honey are not considered as wines.

Etymology

The word wine is derived from the old English ‘win’, and the Proto-Germanic ‘winam’ which was initially derived from the Latin word ‘vinum’ which means wine or vine.

History of Wine

Patrick McGovern’s team identified the residues of wine at the University Museum located in Pennsylvania in prehistoric ceramic jars. Report involves ceramic jars from the sites of Neolithic located at Shulaveri about 6000 BC. The evidences depend on the identification of tartrate salts and tartaric acid using a kind of generated spectroscopy.

In one of the book ‘Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture’ McGovern disagrees that the adoption of the Eurasian winemaking and wine grape have invented on the territory of current Armenia and Georgia and from there it spreads to South. Little is known about the prehistory of wine. Earlier, farmers prepared the intoxicating drinks from wild fruits such as wild grapes.

There were also more and more plentiful facts for making of wine in Egypt and Sumeria in the 3 rd millennium BC. The early Chinese prepared wine from indigenous wild mountain grapes such as Vitis thunbergii. Though wild grapes grow in Georgia , southeastern Turkey and northern Armenia and Iran but some suggested that Georgia is the origin of wine.

Wine played a significant part in the life of ceremonies in Ancient Egypt. The arrival of wine in Europe was the effort of the Greeks who widen the skill of winemaking and growing grape in Ancient Roman and Greek period.

Red and white wine was mainly found in Egypt. The knowledge of winemaking was enhanced during the period of Roman Empire. Many varieties of grape and the procedures of farming were identified. Wine was consumed by the merchant and noble classes and by the church in medieval Europe .

Types of Wines

Wines can be classified into various other classes such as:-

• Red wines
• Appetizer wines
• Sparkling wines
• Rose wines
• Dessert wines
• Table wines
• White wines
• Getting drunk wines
• Cooking wines

Classification of Wine

Wines can be classified by following various methods such as:-

• By vinification methods
• By taste
• By vintage
• By wine style
• By quality