20 Amazing facts about wine

Amazing facts about wine

Wine is a very old and complex drink with a long and fascinating history. It will take you years of study to really understand its intricacy and become a wine connoisseur. Today, it’s the occasion to sharpen your wine facts!

Still, there are a few facts about wine that everyone can grasp quickly, just in case you find yourself at a posh party and you want to make a good first impression.

Well, let’s go together through the most amazing facts about wine and make you wine smart in less than 5 minutes.

1. Drinking wine can improve your sex life

This is perhaps one of the most amazing and interesting facts about wine. When drunk regularly it can actually help you boost your sex drive. An Italian study showed that women who have 2 glasses of wine daily, enjoy physical pleasure much more intensely than women who don’t drink wine at all. A very good reason to start drinking wine, isn't it?

2. The world’s biggest red wine consumers are the Chinese but a really small country is rocking first place per capita basis

The Chinese drank their way to a record 155 million 9-litre cases of red wine in 2013, thereby surpassing the French whose consumption decreased by 18 % to 150 million cases. The increasing popularity of red wine in China is largely due to the fact that red is considered to be a lucky colour. This symbolic importance combined with the health improving virtues of the drink, encourage Chinese to grab a bottle from the supermarket shelf more and more often.

Can you guess who the biggest wine consumers in the world are? Well, while Italy is world’s biggest wine producer, Italian are only #4 on our wine consumers list surpassed by France and Portugal.

When it comes to the biggest US wine consumers the leaders are: California, New York followed by Florida.

France still drink more wine (all categories) per capita than the Chinese with 53 litres per capita per year versus 1.9 in China.

But which country drinks the most wine per capita? The Vatican with 74 litres per capita per year which is about 99 bottles of 75cl per year !

3. We have monks to thank for our wine

Monastic orders such as the Cistercians and Benedictines preserved and innovated the art of wine making during the Middle Ages. It is thanks to their research and indefatigable efforts we have such an elaborate wine making technology today. One of the world’s most famous Champagnes Dom Pérignon was named after a monk. Dom Pierre Pérignon (1638-1715), an early advocate of organic wine-making, experimented with new methods, successfully improving the wine making process. His practices and techniques are still used today.

4. Not every wine improves your health

Red wines are known to contain many beneficial antioxidants such as polyphenol and resveratrol that have cardio-protective effects and anti-cancer properties. Grape skin is especially rich in antioxidants. Since red wine is fermented together with its skin, it has more antioxidants than white wine which is processed without its skin. White wine may even slightly increase the risk of contracting cancer, especially of the digestive tract, as some studies show. So, don’t drink more than 1 or 2 glasses of wine per day!

5. Wine Names Usually Indicate Location or Grape Varieties

Most European wines are named after their geographical origin. One very famous example would be the Bordeaux wine which is produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Bordeaux wines are made of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and to a much lesser extent Carmenere and Malbec.

Non-European wines almost always have the name of the grape (aka the varietal) on the label – for instance Cabernet Sauvignon from California.

Now you know!

6. The colour of the wine tells you about its geographical origin

One of the things that you can tell by looking at the colour of the wine, is the region and climate where the grape vine is located. Darker shades of wine, namely the darkest reds and yellow whites come from warm climates. Lighter colours come from cooler climates and taste lighter and less lush.

7. Women get drunk faster from wine because of their water to fat ratio

Women usually tolerate less alcohol than men, but this has nothing to do with their body weight or size. If a woman and a man of the same size and build drank the same amount of wine, the woman would still show a higher blood alcohol concentration (BAC). This is because women have a higher fat content than men and fat does not absorb any alcohol. The intoxicant therefore spreads to less liquid, leading to a higher BAC.

8. Wine was discovered about 6,000 years ago in the Middle East

The earliest remnants of wine were discovered in Iran, dating back to the Neolithic period (8500-4000 B.C.). The oldest evidence of cultivated vines were found in Georgia, dating from 7000-5000 B.C. It is supposed that the drink originally fermented by mistake. Native yeasts accidentally came in contact with grapes stored in containers, turning the sugars in the grapes into alcohol. The art of wine making was later refined by the Egyptians and spread throughout the Mediterranean by the Greek. The Romans made it popular all over Europe and the Spanish as well as other Europeans took their brew to the New World, Oceania and South Africa.

9. There are people that are afraid of wine

Yup! Amazingly, there are people around the world who hate wine and there’s even a name for it, it is called “oenophobia”.

10. Wine Doesn't Make You Fat

While beer makes that aesthetic beer belly, wine does not affect your waistline at all. In fact recent studies showed that “women who routinely drank moderate amounts of alcohol, totalling about one drink per day, carried almost 10 pounds less body fat than women who did not drink at all”. Experts believe that the calories in alcohol are not metabolised in the same way as calories from carbohydrates, fats or protein. So if you are about to start a diet to lose weight, then you should consider having a glass of wine instead of chocolate pudding for dessert.

11. Production 

One standard acre of grapevines

= Produces 5 tons of grapes

=3,985 bottles of wine

=797 gallons of wine

=15,940 glasses of wine

=13.5 barrels of wine

One barrel of wine

=1,180 glasses of wine

=24.6 cases of wine

One Case of Wine

=30 pounds of grapes

=48 glasses of wine

=12 bottles of wine

One bottle of wine

=2.4 pounds of grapes

=4 glasses of wine

=4 happy people

12. CHEERS

The custom of bumping glasses with a “cheers” greeting came from old Rome where they used this method to make sure no one is trying to poison the other (bumping glasses makes the drink spill from one cup to the other). This tradition started even earlier in ancient Greece – where the host was to drink the first cup of wine to show his guests he does not intend to poison them.

13. And if I mention Rome

In ancient Rome it was forbidden for women to drink wine. If a husband found his wife drinking wine he would be allowed, by law, to kill her.

14. An ancient civilization that did not like wine was Egypt. 

The old kings avoided wine from the belief that the red alcoholic beverage is actually the blood of men who tried to fight the gods and failed. This is why, according to the Egyptians, what makes people act irrationally while drinking it (alcohol).

15. Do you like wine AND living extreme? 

If you visit Vietnam, ask your waiter a glass of cobra wine. This extreme beverage is rice-wine covered with snake blood that is killed on the spot. if you’d like you can add the snake’s heart to the mix as well.

16. During the prohibition period in the United States, 

grape juice concentrate manufacturers took advantage of the big drinking lust Americans had and put a great warning sticker on their product saying “After you mix the concentrate with water, please do not keep the mix in a barrel for 20 days – as it will turn into wine.”

17. The world champion of recognizing wine by smell was crowned in 2003. 

Richard Juhlin, Sweden, was able to recognize 43 wines out of 50. For comparison – second place was only able to recognize 4 of them.

18. Although the temptation is great – try not to keep your wine in the kitchen. 

The heat there is too much and may damage the wine’s quality. the fridge is no place for a wine either since it is just too cold. Find a cool dark closet somewhere in the house where you can keep all your bottles, or just get a wine cellar.

19. If you own a collection of bottles

Don’t keep them standing up – this can cause the cork to dry, shrink and oxygen\air might get in the bottle. always keep the bottles lying down (Unless its an artificial cork.)

20. Down under 

A survey that was being held in Australia said that women that drink 2 cups of wine a day tend to enjoy sex more than women who don’t drink at all.