June 23rd - 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 Gentlemen’s Magazine of 1803 describes the Duke of Bedford’s wedding to Lady Georgiana Gordon including a description of the wedding favors (white and silver) and wine and cake at the reception.
• In a letter dated June 23, 1808, Martha Jefferson Randolph complaining about amount of wine available in the wine cellar and that Monticello had exhausted its supply of Madeira
• Russian poet Anna Akhmatova was born in 1889.  She wrote:

A land not mine, still
forever memorable,
the waters of its ocean
chill and fresh.

Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk,
and the air drunk, like wine,
late sun lays bare
the rosy limbs of the pinetrees.

Sunset in the ethereal waves:
I cannot tell if the day
is ending, or the world, or if
the secret of secrets is inside me again.

“”
A land not mine, 1964