The Incas traded with it, the Egyptians depict their Pharaohs with goblets of it and buried them with wine amongst their other treasures as food to take with them to the next world. Both the Greeks and Romans had gods devoted
to it - Dionysus and Baccus. Wine in Ancient Egypt was drunk by the upper classes and the Pharaohs. Many scenes from tombs give us a fairly accurate picture of the Egyptian vineyards and the techniques of wine production. The best
site to locate a vineyard was on a hill, but if there wasn’t one the Egyptians made an artificially raised plot of land and planted the vines there. A wall generally enclosed the area, very similar to the conditions of Bordeaux which is set in a valley. They were watered by hand from a water basin and looking after the vines was the head gardener’s most important job. Even then, keeping a wine for years to mature was not all that uncommon. In the annex of Tutankhamun’s tomb 36 wine jars were found and each borea docket in Heiratic giving the date, place, and vintage of the wine and showing the Aten Domain Vineyard wines to
be maintained for at least 21 years.
| It was in fact the Romans who brought the first vines to France at about 500 BC, and planted in Bordeaux at approximately 50 AD. There has been much speculation about the quality of Roman wine, which is quite well documented. |  |
| It apparently had extraordinary powers of keeping, which in itself suggests that even then it was good. The great vintages were discussed and even drunk for longer than seems possible; there are records of a wine made in 121 BC being drunk when it was 125 years old. The most consequential move in history was when the Romans took their vines to Gaul and by the time they withdrew in the fifth century from what is now France, they had laid the foundations for almost all the greatest vineyards of the of the modern world. | |
In 1855 Napoleon III effectively started the “Fine Wine Index” when he classified the wines in Bordeaux from 1 to 5. He based his decisions on the quality and prices realised of each Châteaux wines over the previous 100 years or so;
so giving Fine Wine a pricing history as far back as 1755. Apart from one change in 1979 when Château Mouton-Rothschild was promoted from a 2nd growth to a 1st growth wine, nothing has changed. In fact the laws he put in place in 1855 are
vigorously upheld today and controlled by the Institut D’Appellations d’Origine and upheld by EC directives.
