December 26th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association and and the focal point of the Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots was born in 1751.  In 1787 he converted to Judaism while undergoing a trial for defaming Marie Antoinette. While imprisoned in Newgate prison, he was supplied with kosher meat and wine.

• Days of Wine and Roses starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick was released in 1962.

• It is the feast day of St. James the Just who was known for drinking no wine nor the eating of meat and wore only fine linen.

• The French have a saying, « À la saint Étienne, pas de vent, pour le vin c'est excellent. » or "To St Stephen, no wind, for wine is excellent. “

• « Dans la nuit qui amène saint Étienne, s'il fait du vent, le vin sera très abondant » or "In the night that brings St. Stephen, if it makes the wind, the wine will be very abundant “.

• Happy Boxing Day!

December 25th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Charlemagne was crowned as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III.  The Emperor celebrated mass where he presented the wine and his Empress the water for the Eucharist.

• In 1213, King John of England ordered 3,000 capons, 1,000 salted eels, 400 hogs, 100 pounds of almonds and 24 casks of wine for his Christmas feast.

• The Eggnog Riot ends at West Point in 1826.  Eggnog was often enriched with sherry, brandy, whisky and rum at the time.

• The Macau Wine Museum opens in 1995.

December 24th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise fails in 1800.  This plot was designed to kill Napoleon with a wine cask filled with explosives.

• The Touraine AOC was created in 1939. 

• French oenologist, Michel Rolland was born in 1947

• The Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence AOC was created in 1985

• The Egg Nog Riot begins at West Point in 1826.  Eggnog was often enriched with sherry, brandy, whisky and run at the time. Btw, Confederate President, Jefferson Davis was one of the participants.

• If you celebrate Christmas, be sure to leave out treats for Santa Claus.  We suggest Syrah in lieu of milk.

December 23rd - This Date in Wine History

Festivus meatloaf, served on lettuce.

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Jean François Champollion was born in 1790.  He was known for deciphering the Rosetta Stone.  It contains records from Ptolemy V including donations of wine to temples and vineyard harvests.

• Bonfort’s Wine and Spirit Circular reports that weather on this date in 1889 had been so bad that there were fewer customers to purchase brandy in Charentes.

• California's Redwood Valley AVA was designated in 1996.

• Happy Festivus.  Please watch your imbibing of spirits before the airing of  grievances or feats of strength.

December 22nd - This Date in Wine History

December 21st - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• John Otto Donner of Jersey City, NJ is issued a patent for treating wine, beer and liquors with salts of magnesia in 1869.

• The Lamezia DOC was created 1978

• The Lizzano DOC  and Rosso di Montepulciano DOC were created in 1988

• Spain's Arlanza DO was created in 2007

• Today is the German celebration of Yule.  Enjoy a cup of Glühwein, a type of mulled wine.

• The ancient Roman’s celebrated Brumalia.  Vine growers would sacrifice a goat to Bacchus.

December 20th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Pieter de Hooch, a Dutch painter was born in 1629.  He is known for “A Woman Drinking with Two Men” and “A Woman and Two Men in an Arbor”.

• The California Agricultural Experiment Station reports that in 1887, the Mataro (Carignan) grapes from Margherita Vineyard in Fresno had produced wine that was  “decidedly acutefied”.  The wine was racked and pasteurized the next day.

• Wine of Youth, a silent comedy-drama directed by King Vidor and released by MGM was released in 1924 

• The Régnié AOC was created in 1988

• California's Capay Valley AVA was designated in 2002

• Happy Sangria Day!

December 19th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery  left England in 1606 with colonists who would found Jamestown, Virginia.  Jamestown was underwritten by the Virginia Company that required settlers to provide for their own needs and hence viticulture came to Virginia.

• A note from 1834 in the Register of Debates in Congress indicates that American’s imported $200,000 of wine from France in 1824 and increasing to $920,000 in 1833.

• Albert Abraham Michelson, the first American to win a Nobel Prize in a science was born in 1852.  Born in Poland, he moved to California in 1855.  His childhood home in Murphys Camp is now a tasting room for Hovey Wine.

• In a letter from 1883, Giuseppe del Puente of 5th Ave., New York praises Dr. Angelo Mariani for his fine wine, Vin Mariani. Vin Mariani was made from Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves.

December 18th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce provided two casks of wine to Sir Patrick de Dunbar, Earl of March in 1310.

• Christina, Queen of Sweden was born in 1626. The celebration of her coronation included fountains filled with wine for three days in the market place.

• New Jersey ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1787.  It is home to the Central Delaware Valley, Outer Coastal Plains and Warren Hills viticultural areas.

• E.W. Hilgard of Mission San Jose found his Cinsault turbid, with a markedly aromatic bouquet, medium body, low astringency, and medium acid: slightly suspicious in quality.  He then racked and pasteurized the wine for safety.

• Diane Disney Miller, daughter of Walt and founder of Silverado Vineyards was born in 1933.

• It is the feast day of Saint Sebastian who’s skull is used as a wine cup on his feast day. The skull cap relic is located in Germany.

• James Beard award winning author of "What to Drink With What You Eat", Andrew Dornenburg was born in 1958.

• The movie, May  Wine debuted in 1991.

• Zhen Wang Huang, aka Rudy Kurniawan was convicted in 2013.  He is a wine collector who was convicted of wine fraud by buying Burgundy wine from negociants and relabelling them are more valuable wines, such as those the Domaine Romanée-Conti.

December 17th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The first Saturnalia festival was celebrated in 497 BC.

• Jamal ad-Din Rumi, Muslim poet, jurist, scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic died in 1273.  He wrote:

On the seeker’s path, wise men and fools are one.

In His love, brothers and strangers are one.

Go on! Drink the wine of the Beloved!

In that faith, Muslims and pagans are one. -Quatrain 305

• Humphry Davy was born in 1778.  He was a chemist known for isolating potassium, calcium and strontium among others.  He is also known for experiments with nitrous oxide which he mixed with wine and tried as a hangover cure (his notes said it worked).

• This day in 1794 would have been the 27th day of the month Frimaire under the French Revolutionary Calendar. The day of the month was respresented by the Cork Oak Tree (Liège) and the month by Frost (Frimaire).

• 50 Alsatian Grand Crus were established in 1992.

December 16th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Catherine of Aragon was born in 1485. After the birth of her first child, Henry, Duke of Cornwall was born guns were fired, bells were rung, fires lit and free wine was given to the public.

• George Whitefield, one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement was born in 1714.  He was the son of an inn keeper who was “bred to the wine-trade” at least according to The General Assembly’s Missionary Magazine.

• Barbe Nicole Ponsardin born in 1777, she is the future Veuve Cliquot.

• Birthday of Noël Coward in 1899 who wrote: The air is like a draught of wine. The undertaker cleans his sign, The Hull express goes off the line, When it's raspberry time in Runcorn. in On With the Dance, 'Poor Little Rich Girl’.

December 15th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Emperor Nero who rose to power by poisoning Emperor Claudius’ heir Britannicus  through the water used to cool Britannicus’ wine was born in 37AD. 

• David Teniers the Younger, the Flemish painter was born in 1610.  He is know for the paintings, Festival of the Monkeys, and Smoking and Drinking Monkeys.  In each of these paintings, the  monkeys represent fools in high places.

• Johannes Vermeer, painter of "The Wine Glass, A Lady Drinking and a Gentleman" and "The Girl with the Wineglass" was died in 1675.

• In 1803 Lieutenant De Coetlagon was fined one bottle of wine for annoying Lieutenant Dowlin at mess according to the records of the infantry militia battalions of the County of Southampton.

• Pierre Marie Alexis Millardet who saved the vineyards of France from phylloxera died in 1902.

December 14th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• George Washington died in 1799.  He was a member of the Virginia’s House of Burgesses from 1758-1765.  He plied the voters with 170 gallons of rice punch, beer, wine, hard cider and brandy.

• Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes the French painter was born in 1824.  He is known for his work, The Wine Press.

• ‘I heard it Through the Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye was #1 on the charts in 1968.

• Spain's Conca de Barberá DO was created in 1989.

• Chile's Declaration of Appellations was approved in 1994.

• Oregon's Applegate Valley AVA was designated in 2000.

December 13th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The future Henri IV was born in Pau, Navarre in 1533.  He is said to have been baptised with a spoon of Jurançon wine and garlic.

• Sir Francis Drake begins his round the world voyage in 1577.  During the trip he stopped in Valaparaiso, Chile where he captured a ship of Chilean wine.

• Giovanni Del-Monico, a Swiss Wine Merchant and his brother Pietro open Delmonico & Brother Café 1827.

• Pierre Marie Alexis Millardet who saved the vineyards of France from phylloxera was born in 1838.

• The Cacc'e mmitte di Lucera DOC was created in 1975.

• The Moscato di Sardegna DOC was created in 1979.

• Portugal's Alto Douro Wine Region was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001.

December 12th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Pennsylvania ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1787.  It is home to the Central Delaware Valley, Cumberland Valley, Lake Erie, Lancaster Valley,  and Lehigh Valley.

• Edvard Munch was born in 1863.  He was a painter and photographer known for “The Scream” as well as “Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine”.

• In 1887. J.T. Doyle of Cupertino revealed that his plot of long-pruned Grossblaue produced a “Thin, dry wine with pronounced astringency.  It was racked and pasteurized for safety”  This wine improved considerably by June of the following year.  Grossblaue is also known as the Slovenian wine grape, Žametovka.

• Bonfort’s Wine and Spirit Circular reported that Senator Henry W. Blair introduced a bill to create a commission to look at Alcohol and taxation.  The purpose of the commission would be to reduce alcohol usage.  

• California's Madera AVA was designated in 1984.

December 11th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The Mongols begin to retreat in 1241 because Ogodei, son of Ghengis Khan died of alcohol poisoning.

• George Mason, Virginia planter and delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was born in 1725.  He was a pioneer in the Virginia wine industry and was a patron of Maurice Pound who experimentented on his behalf.

• South African chemist and viticulturist, Abraham Izak Perold died in 1941

• It is Indiana day to celebrate the Hoosier State’s admission into the United States in 1816.  Indiana is home to two viticultural areas.  The Ohio River Valley and Indiana Uplands.

• It is the feast day of St. Gentian.  He is the patron saint of innkeepers.

December 5th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Sir Francis Drake discusses his stop in valperizo (Valparaiso) to re-provision his ship with wine, bread, bacon, etc for a long season in 1578.  

• Prohibition is repealed in 1933.

• In 1985, a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson sold at Christie’s London for 105,000 British Pounds making it the world’s most expensive wine. (it was probably a fake).

• The Savennières AOC was designated in 1996.

December 3rd - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Illinois was admitted to the union in 1818.  It is home to the Shawnee Hills and Upper Mississippi River Valley viticultural areas.

• In 1894, while straining to open a bottle of wine, Robert Louis Stevenson collapsed.  He died a few hours later.

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French impressionist painter died in 1919.  He is known for Luncheon of the Boating Party and Bar du moulin de la Galette which feature revelers enjoying drinks…

• The Faro DOC was established in 1976.

• The Lessona DOC was created in 1976.

December 4th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Nicholas Breakspear was declared #Pope #AdrianIV in 1154.  His #papacy would end five years later when he #choked on a #fly in his #wine

• U.S. Gen. George Washington held a dinner to bid farewell to his officers in 1783.  He toasted them with the words,  "[w]ith a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." As he later asked to take each one of his officers by the hand for a personal word.

• California's McDowell Valley AVA was designated in 1981.

• California's Santa Cruz Mountains AVA was designated in 1981.

• California's Sonoma Valley AVA was designated in 1981.

• Falcon Crest, an American primetime television soap opera about an American winemaking family debuted 1981.

• Happy Cabernet Franc Day!

December 2nd - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Hernán Cortés, Conquistador, Governor and Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca died in 1577.  Legend has it that he and his soldiers drank all of their wine so fast after arrival in the new world that one of his first acts as Governor was to require the planting of vineyards throughout New Spain.

• Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, infamously known as the Marquis de Sade died in 1814.  In The 120 Day of Sodom he wrote: “Le duc imita bientôt avec Bande-au-ciel la petite infamie de son ancien ami et il paria, quoique le vit fût énorme, d'avaler trois bouteilles de vin de sens froid pendant qu'on l’enculerait”. or “The Duke soon imitated his old friend's little infamy and wagered that, enormous as Invictus' prick might be, he could calmly down three bottles of wine while lying embuggered upon it.”  He sounds nice.

• The Jurisdication of Saint-Emilion, France was named a United Nations World Heritage Site in 1999

• The South African wine-making co-operative,Koöperatieve Wijnbouwers Vereniging van Zuid-Afrika Bpkt, became KWV Ltd. in 2002

• It is the feast day of St. Bibiana.  She is the patron saint of hangovers.