Grapes
When it comes to grapes, few people would not think of
“Fine red wine glitters in a jade chalice that glows in the night,
Before I could drink it come lyre notes giving orders to mount the horse.
Laugh not, I pray you, at my tipsiness that may see me fall drunk on the battlefield,
For how many have been able to return in the history of war?”
But grapes are native to Europe and Central Asia!
European grapes (also known as wine grapes) are perennial dicotyledonous plants of the genus Vitis in the Vitis family, which were domesticated in the Near East from about 8,000 to 6,000 BC. We seem to eat more grapes than drink grapes in Taiwan, but most of the grapes produced in the world are used to make wine.
Grapes are one of the earliest domesticated crops in human history. Whether it is fresh fruit or winemaking occurs first is actually unclear. The earliest record of winemaking is found in the Hajji Firuz Tepe in the northern part of Zagros Mountain in Iran, 7,400–7,000 years ago. Human cultivation makes it from a dioecious plant to a monoecious plant; it also causes the flowering time of cultivated varieties to be different from that of wild varieties. In this way, it is difficult to mix wild grapes with cultivated varieties under natural conditions.
By 5,500–5,000 years ago, grapes had spread to Egypt, and then spread to the Mediterranean coast with civilizations such as Assyria, Phoenician, Greece, and Rome. In China, about 138–137 BC, when Zhang Qian was envoy to the Western Regions, he introduced the grapes from Dayuan in the Western Regions. Taiwan began to cultivate wine grapes in the 1950s. The main early varieties were “Golden muscat” and “Black Queen” and also slowly developing local varieties. There are more than 10,000 different varieties of wine grapes in the world, but due to the influence of globalization and the market, there are only four varieties that are most widely cultivated: Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot.
The earliest grapes have dark seed coats, which makes the wines appear dark red, similar to human blood. Perhaps because of this, the Sumerians believed that man was created by a mixture of clay and wine (god’s blood). In the early days of the Assyrian Empire, wine was still an exotic luxury, with a price more than ten times that of beer. By the time of Athens, grapes became an important crop. Wine preservation was not easy at that time. In order to preserve the wine, the Romans would add shells, gypsum, or even save wine in lead containers, causing lead poisoning among many nobles.
In the Athens era, although the Greeks already knew how to make wine, they still drank beer on a daily basis because of the high alcohol content and relatively expensive price of wine. The Romans stopped drinking beer and changed to wine in 100 BC; they only drank beer when they went to war because it took time to make wine and was inconvenient to carry. Newly weaned children and the elderly drink wine diluted with water. In ancient times when sanitary conditions were not good, it was safer than drinking water directly.
The wines in Rome are divided into three categories, and people of different status levels drink different wines. The wine made by squeezing fresh grapes for the first time is only for the elite class to drink; then it is squeezed again and made into “posca”, which is distributed to the general public and soldiers for drinking; and then it is soaked in water again. The second grape pomace obtained “lora” with a little wine and astringency, which was given to slaves to drink.
Greece is the first ethinic group in the world to carry out large-scale commercial grape cultivation. Wine has become the main export commodity of Greece, reaching the Crimea Peninsula in the east, France in the west, Egypt in the south, and the Danube basin in the north; to the Roman era , The wine was even shipped to Gaul (France) and Britain (UK). Because the income of growing grapes is 20 times that of growing grains, farmers have switched to growing grapes, causing them to import grains from elsewhere.
After the invasion of the Nordic tribes in the early fifth century, the territory of wine returned to the Mediterranean region, the main producing area of grapes. However, due to the rise of Christianity, the wine-drinking culture has not only been preserved, it has even become the highest symbol of culture. The Christian sacrament ceremony uses bread and wine to symbolize the body and blood of Christ, and many miracles in the Bible are related to wine. In modern times, the countries that mainly produce and consume wine are still France, Italy, and Spain in the Mediterranean region. The major countries that consume beer are mostly the “northern barbarians” of the time — Germany, Britain, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
In the 16th century, the grapes were brought to Mexico by Hernán Cortés （1485–1547） with the Age of Discovery, and then spread to Peru, Chile, and Argentina; in the second half of the 18th century, they were introduced to Northern California. South Africa was introduced by the Dutch in the 17th century; grapes were introduced to Australia in the 18th century; in the early 19th century, grapes were brought to New Zealand by the missionary.
After the grapes were introduced into the Americas, steamships were used for transportation in order to fight for timelines. Unexpectedly, the shorter transportation time also allowed the phylloxera (grape louse) to spread from the Americas to Europe; by the 1860s, European vineyards were almost wiped out, and the European wine grapes were grafted onto the American grapes. Then there was a large-scale fungal infection, which greatly injured the European wine industry further. It took a full century for Europe grape industry to recover, that also enabled the wine industry in America, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand to develop.
In addition to wine grapes, there are table grapes and raisin grapes. In Roman times, the three types of grapes were distinguished. Table grape cultivation in Taiwan began in 1960, mainly in Changhua County, with Kyoho grapes as the main variety, accounting for more than 98% of the cultivated area.
In addition to being edible, the main sugar transported in the blood of mammals, glucose, is also related to raisins! In 1747, the German chemist Andreas Marggraf （1709–1782） separated it from raisins for the first time, so it was called glucose （literally meaning “grape sugar”). In Taiwan, grapes are mainly eaten fresh; when we taste Taiwan’s own Kyoho, imported Sultanas, and Red Globe Grapes, it’s really making us to wonder that wine was once regarded as the blood used by gods to make people. Amazing!
