Since the inception of ‘The Wine Society’, it has come a long way in generating interest in the wine culture and promote wines from all over the world.
History of Wine


Wine has a long history, and individual bottles of wine can have their story too. Wine was one of the first things that Man created, and it has held a special place in many cultures. The history of wine is also an intriguing story of technical innovation, as Man applied his intelligence to the problems posed by the first chemical reactions that he encountered: wine is an alcoholic beverage obtained from the fermentation of the juice of freshly gathered grapes. The fermentation takes place in the district of origin, according to local tradition and practice.

The great classical civilizations of Greece and Rome traced it back into their prehistory, and built legends around its discovery. Ancient Egypt has left us wine lists and wall paintings. The grape is the one fruit that, with its concentrated sugars and ample juice, has an inherent tendency to ferment. Fermentation makes alcohol, and this will take place when the grapes are ripe and the juice released comes into contact with yeast there in plenty, in wild form, on the skins of the grapes. So if the grape juice is held in a container, wine will make itself. Pure conjecture leads us to a Stone Age man who placed ripe grapes in a vessel clay pot, wooden bowl or skin bag and, perhaps forgetting them, left them to ferment. In warm conditions this will happen in hours rather than days, and in days there will be wine of a sort. Who was the first to drink this intoxicating and delightful juice We can never know, but perhaps he or she also had the first wine

 
 

induced headache. At feasts, in religious ceremonies, as antiseptic, as medicine: wine has played many roles. But only comparatively recently in its history came the biggest breakthrough: when the ability to age wine was mastered, allowing us to keep it perhaps for years, improving in cask or bottle, fine wine was born.

Types of Wine:

  • Still wines with an alcoholic strength ranging from 8.5 to 18 percent. They are made by fermentation of the juice extracted from grapes and classified into Red (made from red grapes), white wines (from red or white grapes) and rose wines.
  • Sparkling wines have sparkle in the form of carbon dioxide, naturally or artificially with 12 to 15 percent alcoholic strength. Those from the region of Champagne in France can only be called "champagne".
  • Fortified wines have 17 to 24 percent alcohol added before the fermentation is complete. They tend to be sweet as the extra alcohol added to the wines deactivates the yeast and stops the fermentation, leaving sugar in the wines include Sherry, Port and Madeira.
  • Aromatised wines have alcohol in the form of brandy added after the fermentation is over, leading to consumption of the entire sugar by yeast resulting in very dry wines. Vermouths like Martini Rosso and extra dry fall in this category.

Drink it right:

There are three logical and consecutive stages to wine tasting: the colour, the aroma and finally, the taste.

Colour : Look at the colour. Besides red or white, it will also tell you more. A brick-coloured red is likely to be several years old. A colourless white is likely to be young. A golden coloured white may be sweet, may have been aged in oak, and may be several years old.

Aroma : Raise the glass to your nose and sniff; don’t agitate the glass, holding the stem, rotate the glass so that the wine coats the glass. The more the area of glass coated, the more the aroma released.

Once the wine has coated the sides, raise the glass again and sniff. How powerful is the aroma? Can you smell fruits? Or perhaps a smell of straw or bay? Or perhaps chocolate, tobacco, liquorice, coffee or mushrooms? Is it just one aroma, or do different aromas fight for your attention? Do the aromas change with the length of time the wine spends in your glass? As wine age, so do their aromas.

Taste: Take a good sip of wine and slosh it around your moth. If you take in little gasps of air through your teeth at the same time, the flavour will be enhanced.

Does the wine seem thin, or is it round with a definite texture? Does the flavour change in your mouth and does it appear to have different layers of flavours? How long does the flavour ligner? Generally, the better the wine, the more complex its flavours, and the longer the flavour will linger “.

Glassware:

Sparkling wine and champagne include the champagne tulip, champagne flute and champagne sauces. The characteristic shape of each of these glasses adds to the aroma of the wine and extends or reduces the sparkle. The champagne saucers being wide on the rim causes the champagne to fizz out faster hence its capacity is lower and on the other hand, flutes and tulips can hold the wine longer as the bubbles can't escape.

 

 
 
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