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Wine: History & Health Benefits

Wine has over 8,000 years of history and was likely first discovered when early farmers collected wild fruits to ferment into alcohol, including grapes. It played an important role in ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. While only the wealthy drank wine during the Middle Ages, varieties have expanded greatly and wine has become a global industry with health benefits. Modern research has shown wine may help explain the "French paradox" of lower heart disease in France despite an unhealthy diet.

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111 views1 page

Wine: History & Health Benefits

Wine has over 8,000 years of history and was likely first discovered when early farmers collected wild fruits to ferment into alcohol, including grapes. It played an important role in ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. While only the wealthy drank wine during the Middle Ages, varieties have expanded greatly and wine has become a global industry with health benefits. Modern research has shown wine may help explain the "French paradox" of lower heart disease in France despite an unhealthy diet.

Uploaded by

Emily Cox
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Wine: Its History and Health Benefits

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.  But nowadays, a glass of wine
does, too.

In recent years, the medical world has done extensive studies to


determine the health effects of wine.  The interest in wine by
researchers, and the number of tests done, demonstrates the recent
surge in popularity.  And with its popularity over the past twenty years,
the beverage has spread around the world.  For example, wineries
have popped up in such unlikely places as the north of Japan and
Sweden.  They have also spread throughout New Zealand, Australia,
Argentina, and Chile.  And because wine has become more and more
popular, local cuisine and dining habits have changed.  In Ireland, a
place where Guinness and whiskey go hand in hand with history and
tradition, wine now makes up 20% of all alcohol drunk there.  People go to restaurants for wine and
dinner instead of pubs for a few pints of beer.

You may be surprised to discover just when wine was first drunk, though.  It's a very ancient
beverage.  Although no one knows exactly when people first began to drink it, wine has at least 8,000
years of history.  Archaeologists have found evidence at many Old World sites as proof.  No one
knows how it was first discovered.  Historians believe that early farmers collected wild fruit, which
they then turned into alcohol.  Wild grapes were probably included in the mix.  Domesticated grapes,
or grapes that were selected and raised by people, appeared about 5,000 years ago.  And from then,
wine moved through the ancient civilizations.  It became an important part of the history and culture
of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

Through the Middle Ages, only the wealthy drank wine.  The poor drank beer.  Yet the development
of wine continued, along with the creation of new varieties.  Nowadays there are many different kinds
of grapes, which produce many different kinds of wine.  Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay
are household names, but there are hundreds of kinds of grapes grown for wine production.  Each
has a unique taste, which is also affected by soil, weather, and topography.

In recent years, especially since the early 1990s, researchers have spent a lot of time examining what
they call "the French paradox."  Traditional French food contains a lot of unhealthy fat.  Yet the
French have a much lower level of heart disease than Americans.  The answer, many believe, comes
from the amount of wine drunk by the French.  And although other types of alcohol also have been
discovered to possess health benefits, only wine contains additional chemicals that help fight cancer
and Alzheimer's Disease.

Wine collecting has further driven the boom in wine.  Some wines sell for thousands of dollars per
bottle, and will likely never be drunk.  Wine is a multi-billion dollar industry, which gets bigger and
bigger every year.

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