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WELCOME TO CEREBRAL BOINKFEST!

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Showing posts with label mead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mead. Show all posts

Friday, January 27, 2012

Ancient Sour Grapes

A relief from ancient Egypt, circa 1,500 BCE, showing the
growing of grapes, and the production and trade of wine.

The earliest evidence of wine production (oenology) is from Georgia (Russia, not the U.S.) around 6,000 BCE.  This was determined by a gene-mapping project in 2006 where 110 common cultivars were analyzed and found to originate in Georgia.  Evidence has also been found in sites in Iran (5,000 BCE) and Armenia (4,000 BCE), while domestication of the grapevine seems to have occurred in the Near East, Sumer, and Egypt around 3,000 BCE.  There are archaeological sites in Macedonia from 4,500 BCE that reveal the earliest wine production centers in Europe.

A map of archaeological sites were wine or olive agriculture were found.
Click on this link for a larger view of the map.

Wines are made with a number of fruits and grains.  They are usually named for whatever their main ingredient is, such as strawberry wine or rice wine.  The term "wine" in many of these cases refers to the face they are alcoholic beverages rather than how they are produced.  Wines made of grains are closer to beer than wine. Grape wine is made with fermenting crushed grapes and yeast, which consumes the sugars in the grapes converting them to alcohol.  Grapes have a natural chemical balance which allows them to ferment without additions such as sugars or enzymes.

Grapes that will be made into wine.

Actually, very little is known about the beginnings of oenology.  Gatherers and early farmers may have used wild plants.  As the production process was established, the need may have arisen for a steady supply, and certain types of grapes may have been preferred.  In 2007, the earliest known winery was found in Armenia that has been determined to be 6,100 years old.  Areni-1, as the winery is known, had fermentation vats, a press, storage jars, and pottery shards.  The site was determined to be a burial site, so the wine produced there is believed to have been intended for rituals involving burials.  The people who lived here at this time are unknown, but the site was abandoned when the roof caved in.  Sheep dung prevented fungi, thus preserving the site.

Areni-1 with wine press in front of sign and fermentation vat at right.
Image courtesy of Gregory Areshian.

The word "wine" is from a Proto-Indo-European stem *win-o.  Our modern viniculture comes from ancient Greece, where the grapes grown today are similar or identical to those grown in ancient times.  Wines were known to both Minoan and Mycenaean cultures.  There was a festival in Mycenaean times known as the "festival of the new wine" or "month of the new wine" - me-tu-wo ne-wo. This is the earliest known term referring to wine.  Because of the amphorae found all over the ancient world with Greek art and styling, it is possible that the Greeks introduced wine to many areas, including Egypt.

An Attic black-figure amphora with Dionysus,
circa 6th century BCE.  This is attributed to the
Priam Painter, active in Athens at that time.

In ancient Egypt, wine was used for rituals.  By the end of the Old Kingdom (2650 - 2152 BCE) there were five types of wine considered essential for the afterlife. Although wine was commonly known, the ancient Egyptians were superstitious about its resemblance to blood.  Beer was the preferred drink of the people.

The transportation of wine in barrels across a river, circa 63 BCE - 14 CE.

In ancient Greece and Rome, wines were related to religion with the worship of Dionysus and Bacchus. Wine became a part of the everyday diet, and became big business.  The winemaking regions of western Europe were for the most part established during the Roman Empire.  Barrels were invented by the Gauls, which were easy to roll; later the introduction of glass bottles by the Syrians were also used.  After the Greeks invented the screw (probably Archimedes) it was used throughout the Mediterranean for wine and oil presses.  Roman villas were commonly outfitted with wine presses.  The Romans are credited with naming wines according to their regions, in essence creating a brand of sorts.

A jue, or Chinese bronze beaker used to serve wine.
It has been attributed to the 18th C. BCE, which
would indicate it was made and used for rice wine.
Image courtesy of Art Poskanzer/Wikipedia.

After the Han Dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE), contact with Hellenistic kingdoms introduced grapes into China.  But the Chinese made wine in the 2nd century BCE, before this introduction, using wild grapes. Rice wine was the preferred drink, and grape wine was reserved for the Emperor.  Marco Polo noted that rice wine was more common that grape wine in the 1280s.  Drinking wine was an activity that went along with chess, music, good conversation, meditation, poetry, and calligraphy, among other loftier activities.  The phrase for this was being in the company of "drinking guests."

Pressing wine from a 14th century book, the Tacuinum Sanitatis,
 a  medieval handbook on health and well-being.

In the Middle East wine was imported, as the arid climate was not suitable for growing grapes.  When Islam came about, alcoholic drinks were forbidden, but there are records of medicinal wines being used.  Muslim alchemists worked on distillation, resulting in ethanol, which was used for perfumes.  This is also the first time wine was distilled into brandy.

A woman pouring wine from a 17th century wall
painting  in the Chehel Sotoun Palace, Iran.

When the western Roman Empire fell around 500 CE, the Roman Catholic Church carried on the tradition of viniculture.  Wine was important to the Catholic Mass, so monasteries began producing it.  They produced enough to distribute for secular use throughout Europe.  This is when meads began to be made as well.  Wines were kept in barrels and not aged, but drunk young.  Since ancient times, wines were watered down to control alcohol consumption.

The oldest known bottle of (liquid) wine.  It has been
dated to 300 CE, and was found in a Roman sarcophagus.
It has lots of sediment and a thick mixture which may
 be olive oil.  Although cork closures were known, they
were not commonly used.  Instead olive oil was floated
on the top where it prevented evaporation and oxidation.
Image courtesy of the Historisches Museum der Pfalz.

Vitis vinifera was the species of grape which became most successful, and is still the standard for most of the world's wines.  "Vinland", the new country that explorer Leif Eriksson discovered in 1000 CE, was named for the native grapes that grew there, but which ultimately weren't desirable for wine.  Later on European settlers brought vinifera vines but they didn't take well to American soil. Eventually vinifera vines were grafted to native rootstocks, and the resulting plants were successful.

From St. Peter Port, Guernsey.

Wine was never an invention, but a discovery.  Its development depended on finding the right kinds of grapes and growing them.  Today we continue a very long tradition that has endured for millenia.  À votre santé!

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Unless otherwise noted, images courtesy of Wikipedia.
For a detailed look at how wine is depicted in fiction, see 
OenoLit and the Private Library.
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Monday, September 19, 2011

The Mother of All Libations

Bottles of Russian mead.

Until the 12th century, sugar was not a common ingredient, although it had been extracted and refined for a couple thousand years.  Honey was the common sweetener, and was used medicinally and as a preservative as well.  Honey, mixed with water and perhaps a grain mash, then fermented, is the oldest known fermented drink.  Its origins are lost, but there is archaeological evidence of fermented drinks.  Science Daily reported in 2004 that pottery jars found with the remnants of a fermented beverage made of rice, honey, and fruit show that it was produced in northern China 9,000 years ago.

Honey, the basis of mead.

This drink is called mead, and the very word attests to its ancient heritage.  The word comes from the proto-Indo-European root *médhu, and it has an interesting range of meanings in Indo-European languages which all have to do with honey, sweet, intoxicating, or drunkenness.  The earliest surviving written mention of it is in the Rig Veda, the ancient Indian collection of Sanskrit hymns (1700-1100 BCE). Aristotle (384-322 BCE) wrote of it in his writings.  Columela, who lived in the first century CE in Roman Hispania and wrote on agriculture of the area, recorded the following recipe:

Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius
of this water with a pound of honey.  The whole is exposed
to the sun for 40 days, and then left on a shelf near the fire.
If you have no rain water, then boil spring water.

Mead can be found in literature, especially Celtic.  In Beowulf (circa 8th-11th century CE), warriors drink mead.  About 550 CE, Taliesin, a famous bard, wrote "The Song of Mead".  But in Norse mythology, there is the Poetic Mead or Mead of Poetry, also known as the Mead of Suttungr.  This is a mythical drink that renders anyone who drinks it a scholar, able to recite lore and answer any question.  This was a metaphor for poetic inspiration, said to have been created from the gods spitting in a vat.  They created a man from this spittle who was so wise he knew everything.  Two dwarves killed him and mixed his blood with honey, creating a mead that transformed anyone who drank it into a scholar or a poet.  (The dwarves told the gods that the man had suffocated in his own intelligence.)  Such is the stuff of legends and drunks!

An image from the 18th century Icelandic manuscript "SÁM 66",
showing Odin as a bird spitting "the mead of poetry" into a vessel.
Illustration by Jakob Sigurdsson.

Mead was the historical beverage of preference, until heavy taxation and regulations of the ingredients in alcoholic beverages caused the commercial production of it to significantly lessen.  However some monasteries, especially those in areas where grape production (and hence winemaking) wasn't feasible, engaged in making mead, although it was often a by-product of beekeeping.

A Polish mead, called Trójniak.

In Central Europe and the Balkan area, mead has always been popular.  The Polish name for it is miód pitny, or "drinkable honey".  It also remained popular in Russia, and is mentioned in the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Gogol.  The Finns make a sweet mead spiced with lemon, then raisins are added in a second fermentation.  In Africa, Ethiopians drink tej, flavored with a species of buckthorn, and traditionally served in a rounded container called a berele.  There is a mead called iQhilika made by the Xhosa of South Africa.

A berele of tej.

Since honeys have so many different flavors, so do meads.  Taste also depends on the yeast used or created during fermentation, and the aging process.  In ancient times, meads were fermented by wild yeasts or the bacteria from the skins of fruits, but since these are so unpredictable, yeasts have been developed for use that preserve the honey flavor.  Additives, known as "gruit", also enhance the flavor. Some types of gruit are a combinations of herbs, seeds, and berries.  Others are a mix of fruits and spices.  The blending opportunities are endless, and making mead at home is enjoying a revival, especially since commercial meads, although more prevalent, can be hard to find.

Two types of Finnish mead, on the right is rhubarb-flavored.

There are a plethora of variants of meads.  Meads that contain spices or herbs are called metheglin.  If a mead contains berries, it is a melomel.  This was also a good way to use up summer fruit, in effect preserving it for the winter.  A mead made with fermented grape juice is pyment.  Bochet is an interesting mead where the honey is caramelized before added to water, giving a toffee flavor to it.

Homebrewed melomel.

There are wines made with honey, but these are not considered true meads, and are in fact called faux-meads.  Hypocras, is a drink made with wine, sugar, and spices (mostly cinnamon), which is strained.  It was popular in the Roman Empire, and highly prized in the late Middle Ages, and even inspired the Spanish to make Sangria, originally made with cinnamon, ginger, and pepper.


So, if you are looking for a hobby and are interested in starting a meadery, you will find plenty of help online, from supplies to advice.  What a great way to keep the past alive, and perhaps your mead will, like the Mead of Poetry, enlighten your fellow human beings.

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Images courtesy of Wikipedia.
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