Do You Really Think Wine’s 8,000 Year History Is Evaporating?

Part 1: Why ~ Do you really think wine’s 8,000 year old history is evaporating? C’mon. Wine’s history is long and winding, and it’s had its ups and downs and back again. We’re all in another segment, and we just need to continue being imaginative. I’ve lived long enough to know what goes around comes back around. I believe we just got a bit too big for our britches.

Take this, for instance: a 2023 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 750ml, for $790. Or this, and this is just random research: a 2020 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, for $3,015. These are wines most consumers will never taste, let alone buy. Prices like these scare the average consumer, and I’m one of the people making wine purchase decision.

And remember, as a boomer, I only began enjoying wine in my 30s. I also believe that 20 years ago, young people started to enjoy wines, because their blogger peers made public thoughts available to them. Wine influencers got free samples and their peer group was allowed access to what their friends were thinking and enjoying. The samples have since pretty much dried up, and the next generation isn’t enjoying that opportunity. Hence, there are no more peer reviews. Today’s younger people just don’t have that reality anymore. Mic drop!

8,000 Year History

I believe history is so important, in trying to figure out “why” anything is existing. A curious mind is a healthy mind. So, history: Wine’s origins began 8,000 years ago, and that’s much more than most people even know. Maybe some people don’t give a darn, maybe some people do. For me, it leans toward is ain’t over yet.

Wine’s origins go back 8,000 years, people! Residue has been discovered by chemical analysis on pottery shards from the Shulaveri-Shomu culture in the South Caucasus (modern Georgia).

The artifacts have been dated to around 6,000 BCE, which is the current record for grape wine specifically. There is an Areni-1 cave in Armenia, dated to about 4100 BCE. This is the oldest known actual winery setup, complete with a wine press and fermentation vats.

I found an even older fermented beverage from Jiahu in China, around 7000 BCE, but that was a mixed drink of rice, honey, and fruit rather than pure grape wine. Consequently, it doesn’t quite count for your “first grapes fermented” definition.

US HISTORY

As for Prohibition, it’s a more interesting story than “mostly wine” or “mostly whiskey.” Bootlegging itself skewed heavily toward spirits and beer. The economics of smuggling favored high proof alcohol, since consumers got more punch per gallon transported. The result is that rum running and bathtub gin dominated the illegal trade.

Wine took an even stranger path. Commercial wine production largely collapsed since there was no sacramental or medicinal loophole for casual drinkers. But the Volstead Act allowed households to make up to 200 gallons a year of “non-intoxicating” fruit juice at home. This loophole was gleefully exploited, as you can imagine.

Without naming names, I knew of a few, I been here long enough to get inside.

Where Did It All Go?

Companies sold grape concentrate bricks and products like Vine-Glo, sometimes with labels warning customers not to add sugar or let it sit too long, since that would turn it into wine. Grape acreage in California actually increased during Prohibition because of this home winemaking demand, even though the formal wine industry as we’d recognize it was gutted. It took decades after Repeal in 1933 for California wine quality to recover, since so much vineyard land had shifted to high yield, thick skinned shipping grapes rather than quality wine varieties.

Fair question. This wasn’t pulled from web search, it’s from my training knowledge, so I don’t have specific URLs to hand you for citation purposes. It’s not a “mishmash” in the sense of being made up, these are real, well established findings, and I can’t point you to the exact sources, because I mind my own business on those who had to survive.