| Drinking has formed part of our culture almost since time began. In the mountainous area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, where Noah's Ark landed on the mountains of Ararat, the vine has been native for thousands of years. Indeed in Soviet Georgia, archaeologists found a clay fermentation jar, or kwevri, decorated with bunches of grapes dated as early as 6000BC.
Alcohol, mainly in the form of wine, mead and ale played a crucial role, seen as safer to drink than water, throughout our history.
It was used as a medicine, both as an antiseptic for wounds and as a restorative if ill. |
Each of the old wine loving cultures has a myth regarding the birth of wine. In Persia, King Djemshid is said to have introduced the vine. Legend has it grapes and grape were stored after the harvest in large, cool earthenware jars to be stored in the vaults. Naturally the must began to ferment and King Djemshid's slaves, who secretly drank the juice fell into an intoxicated sleep in the cellar. During the night they were killed by the accumulation of carbon dioxide, given off by the fermenting grapes and so it was believed that the grape juice had become poisonous during storage, and the King reserved the new poison for prisoners condemned to death!
Not much later, one of the King's slaves suffered from a headache so excruciating that she decided to take her life by drinking some of the grape poison. She crept into the cellar, drank, and vainly waited for death. The second drink made her feel better, and the third beaker eased her pain and let her fall asleep! Having slept heavily for a day and a night, she awoke restored. Learning of her miraculous cure, the King was tempted to taste the magic potion. He enjoyed the wine and ordered that grapevines be planted all over his kingdom and wine made. Because of its fame, the wonderful tonic was called "the Royal medicine" and wine was from then on held in high esteem by the Persians (Iran today).
The art of viticulture reached Greece in approximately 2000BC. By the time the Battle of Troy was fought 800 years later, wine was an ordinary drink as necessary to the Greeks as bread and meat. |
| In Jewish Culture |
| In Jewish Culture, the history of wine begins with Noah and the Great Flood. According to the Story of creation, the yeast cell was created on the third day, and when Noah's Ark landed on Ararat, he went ashore and planted a vineyard without delay, in fact Genesis tells us in verse 21 that 'Noah drank of the wine and he was drunken' By the time of Jesus, wine was an ordinary drink taken with meals. At celebrations wine played an important role, hence Jesus, at the wedding in Canna helped his hosts in their predicament by turning their jars of water into wine.
The Romans were passionate followers of anything Greek and they quickly embraced Dionysus as their own Bacchus - a God that became immensely popular. In the Roman army, wine was held in high esteem, and Centurions carried a vine rod as a sign of authority. In his history of the Gallic wars, Caesar tells of the obligation of every soldier in the field to drink his measure of wine to preserve good health and bodily resistance to dysentery.
Wine was essential to the Christian religion as the blood of Christ, and is revered in both the Old and New Testament.
It was only in the C19th century that the 'Temperance movement' began, and alcohol began to be seen as an evil rather than a benefit, if handled properly. The most manifest example was the introduction Prohibition in the US between 1919 and 1933, which drove drinking underground for over a decade.
Since the 1980's alcohol has started to regain its stature as the temperate, meal time beverage of the civilised - bringing pleasure, enjoyment and good health if drunk moderately.
Its renaissance, in part, has been due to the growing body of evidence from eminent researchers and physicians that drinking in moderation is not only enjoyable and sociable but prolongs life by protecting against heart disease and stroke as well as late onset diabetes, alzheimer disease an in the words of Plato, the 'crabbedness of old age'! |
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