Vive la Difference

 The Romans

The Romans established vineyards and made wine throughout Italy. Large scale plantations of vines supplied the growing demand for wine. Some of the grapes grown by the Romans have been identified by present day authorities as the direct ancestors of some of the classic grapes used for the finest wines: the Riesling, the Gamay and the Pinot Noir. As the Romans extended their empire so they established vineyards to supply their armies in to Germany the Iberian Peninsular, the Balkans and Britain . By 282 (the end of the reign of Probus) the vineyards of Burgundy and the Rhone were well established. With the spread of Christianity, religious establishments had their own vineyards producing wine for medicinal and religious purposes. However, with the decline of the Roman Empire and the coming of the Dark Ages these estates became increasingly isolated and subject to the perils of war: in this decline, it is known wolves came into the vineyards of Bordeaux .

Vive la Revolution!

The effect of the French Revolution on land tenure, particularly in Burgundy and the Loire, was to fragment vineyard holdings; but in Bordeaux the bourgeoisie was already powerful before the Revolution and few properties were affected.  From the wine lovers point of view this is advantageous because many wines, even some of the finest, come from comparatively big Bordeaux estates and tend to be widely available.

A Yorkshireman at the Court of Charlemagne

Charlemagne (King of the Franks from768 and Holy Roman Emperor from 800) called a Yorkshireman, Alcuin, to become tutor to the Imperial Court . Alcuin, in his letters, acknowledges presents of wines to him and gives explicit directions as to how the wine should be cared for on its way to him. Alcuin ended his days at the Abbey of St Martin of Tours (already a well known wine centre); St Martin is credited with discovering how to prune vines after some asses got loose and to his dismay chewed the vines shoots. However, at the following vintage it was these vines that bore the greatest crop.

Charlemagne is credited with ordering that the great slope of Johannisberg on the Rhine be planted with vines having noted one winter that this slope was free of snow before the others.