Lecture 1 - Intro to Wine .docx - Lecture 1: Introduction...

Lecture 1: Introduction to Wine
 Wine is a complex commodity that affects many aspects of history
o Will learn about production process, lingo of wine, and geography of wine
 Diffusion – wine has spread all over the world
o Grapes grown in mostly temperate regions
 Wine grapes – subspecies of grapes in one specific area
o From 10,000 BC has moved all over the planet now
 Wine is an economic activity of huge monetary value
o Grapes are the most grown fruit
o Wine is one of the most agriculturally produced
 Major money maker
 Traded between societies
o Mesopotamia, Greco-Roman
 California, Argentina, Italy, china
 Might be the most lucrative agriculture product
 Economy of wine
o Upward growth curve since 3,000 years ago
o Per capita consumption: which societies are drinking the most wine
 France and the Italians drink the most wine at 50-52 liters wine per year
o 50% of the world’s wine will be consumed in 2013 by 5 countries
 China, U.S., on the upward wine consumption
o US took over this past year for wine consumption
o Every state as at least 2-3 wineries
o Wine sales surpassed beer sales
o Hardly anyone was drinking wine in America 50 years ago
o China will soon be biggest wine drinker
 You can buy wine that isn’t even released yet in France
 Wine is a great shaper of land use and landscape
o 20-22 million acres of vineyards worldwide
 We have not plateaued in wine production, it keeps climbing upward
 Agricultural tourism is associated with wine
 Wine is a cultural activity – to both producing and consuming countries
o Agriculture is a part of culture
 food, cuisine make up culture
o major part of identifying and defining culture itself, especially for wine producing
areas
 commodity becomes synonymous with the region its grown in
o