Results: Humanity's Love of Wine

Making the perfect wine is something like a dance. Winemakers use six steps in their art, creating a well-loved beverage from the simplicity of a small fruit. The six steps are growing, harvesting, crushing, pressing, fermentation, clarification, and aging/bottling. Let's take a look at how each step affects the final product. Have you visited a winery and seen any part of the production process?

There is a rather large amount of modern research on wine—everything from the polyphenols composing the grand elixir, to its effects on vascular disease, impacts as a cancer treatment, and even a scientific approach to wine tasting. Resveratrol, a polyphenol in red wine, has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and may reduce the risk of cancer by discouraging cancer cell growth. Although more human studies are needed to confirm this effect, early research in September 2023 on resveratrol in wine has shown its cardiovascular benefits. When I visited a Cardiac Dietician for counseling on my diet, she recommended I drink 9 glasses of red wine each week. A little everyday to reduce my cholesterol and bring down my blood pressure. It worked and my results have stayed down. My doctor stated that whatever I have been doing keep doing it. Have you realized health benefits from a change in your diet?

Legend has it that in 1693, Dom Pierre Pérignon discovered a way to make sparkling Champagne. When he bottled the wine in the winter, the fermentation halted due to the low temperatures. But, during the summer, the bottles warmed up, and the yeast triggered a secondary fermentation directly in the wine bottle. This resulted in carbon dioxide build-up, which in turn made the wine bubbly. The pressure of the CO2 in the wine caused the weak, poor quality French glass bottles to explode. As a result, the drink earned the title devils wine. They learned to use a more sturdy glass bottle. He introduced the usage of corks, which he fastened to the bottle with hemp. Have you ever had a glass of Dom Pérignon Champagne?

Cognac's origins lie in the 16th century with the arrival in France of the Dutch. They bought plenty of French wine but struggled to keep their wine drinkable during its journey home, and thus began distilling it into eau-de-vie. The product, brandewijn ('burnt wine') came to be known as 'brandy', and wine merchants began double distilling their eau-de-vie, as distilling it to a higher strength saved precious space when transporting it on ships. The 18th century saw the formation of today's famous Cognac houses, with Martell first in 1715, founded by Jean Martell from Jersey, with Rémy Martin following a decade later. Do you drink .................?

1828-1866: Félix Courvoisier and Jules Gallois, the sons of the original merchants, established a new business in Jarnac focusing solely on Cognac, allowing them to have greater control of the process. Félix Courvoisier established the House in 1828 and built Maison Courvoisier as its proud soul place in 1857. In 1869 it became the official supplier of the House of Emperor Napoleon III. It was the Offcial Toast at the Inaugural Gala of the Eiffel Tower and won the media door. Have you ever had a snifter of Courvoisier?