April 12th - 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. 

  • Joanna of Castile died in 1555.  The daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, she was less devout than her parents who were referred to as “The Catholic Monarchs”.  She was accused of being corrupted by Parisian ‘drunkard’ priests and punished in the style of the Spanish Inquisition.  She was later deemed “insane” so that properly devout (and male) relatives could reign in her stead.  
  • Christian IV of Denmark was born in 1577.  During a state visit to England a masque of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba  was put on.  It was described as a drunken fiasco.  Most of the players fell over from drinking too much wine.
  • Per Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Johnson had dinner with Boswell at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in 1776 with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Lord Dunsinan and Sir William Forbes where they discussed the nature of wine and wit, JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority, have the modesty not to talk. When they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous: but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects.' 
  • The Economist for this date in 1884 contained an article about the wine crop in the Rhine District of Prussia for 1883. (It was fine.)