March 10th - This Date in Wine History

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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. 

  • Johann Rudolf Glauber was born in 1604.  He was a German-Dutch alchemist who wrote about improvements in wine making and is considered an early chemist or chemical engineer.
  • Parliament passed a duty of 7l. per tun of Madeira and 10s per tun of Portuguese and Spanish wine in 1764.
  • William Shilling of Baltimore, MD received a patent  in 1868 for an apparatus for distilling spiritus liquors… specifically “low” wine.
  • Paul Draper winemaker at Ridge Vineyards in California was born in 1936 .
  • Hugh Johnson OBE, British author and wine expert was born in 1939.
  • It is the feast day of St. Himelin.  He became while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome.  He ask a girl for water and was refused due to plague in the area.  When she relented, the water, miraculously turned into wine.  He died of the plague three days later.