April 3rd - 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.

  • It is the feast day of Saint Richard of Chichester. After becoming bishop he established rules to stop clerical abuses, forced priests to abandon their concubines, celebrate mass in clean robes, use the purest wheat flour for communion hosts and wine was to be mixed with water.

  • In a letter dated April 3, 1563 Sir Thomas Challoner(Chaloner)  writes to Robert Cecil that he was sending a hog’s skin of St. Martin’s wine asking that it be given to the Queen, “perchance prove her of wine to digest her strawberries better than all the purveyors at home”. Chaloner was Elizabeth’s ambassador to Philip II of Spain.

  • Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, a Spanish painter in the Baroque school died in 1682.  He is known for his painting of the Wedding Feast at Cana, where Jesus transforms water into wine.

  • Wine and Ale were provided for the two young men that preached that day in 1688 in Rotherham. 

  • AOC Ajaccio (Corsica) was created in 1984.  It is the birthplace of Napoleon.