THE FIRST WINES
Wild grapes, clay jars and the first vineyards of the Caucasus, Persia and Egypt: wine is as old as the first towns.
c. 6000 BC: The oldest wine
Residues in clay jars from villages south of Tbilisi, in Georgia, are the oldest chemical evidence of grape wine yet found. Georgians still make wine in buried clay vessels, qvevri.
Analysis of pottery from Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, published in 2017, found tartaric acid and other wine compounds. UNESCO lists Georgia’s qvevri method as world heritage.
Talking point: Wine is about 8,000 years old: older than writing, coins or gold jewellery.
c. 5400 BC: Wine with resin in Persia
Jars at Hajji Firuz Tepe in the Zagros mountains of Iran held wine with tree resin, an early preservative, centuries before the Greeks made retsina.
c. 4100 BC: The first winery
In the Areni-1 cave in Armenia, archaeologists found a press, fermentation vats and cups: the oldest known winery.
c. 3150 BC: Wine for the pharaohs
The tomb of an early Egyptian king held hundreds of imported wine jars. Egypt’s elite drank wine; the people drank beer.
1323 BC: Tutankhamun’s labelled wine
The young king was buried with wine jars labelled with the year of his reign, the estate and the chief winemaker: vintage, vineyard and producer, the information a fine-wine label carries today.
Most jars name the year of the reign, the estate (often on the western river, by the Nile delta) and the chief vintner. One held shedeh, a prized red drink.
Talking point: Vintage, vineyard and producer were on wine labels 3,300 years ago; they are still what sets the price.
GREECE AND ROME
Wine becomes culture, trade and empire. Rome plants the vineyards of France, Spain and Germany that still matter today.
c. 500 BC: The Greek symposium
Greeks drink wine mixed with water at the symposium and trade it across the Mediterranean in amphorae. Greek colonists plant vines in southern Italy and at Massalia (Marseille).
121 BC: The Opimian vintage
Romans prize the wines of the year Opimius was consul as a legendary vintage, still talked about a century later: the first famous great vintage.
Pliny the Elder, writing almost 200 years later, describes the Opimian wine as still in existence, reduced to a kind of bitter honey.
Talking point: The Romans already paid more for a famous vintage. Some things in this market never change.
1st century BC: Rome plants Gaul
As Rome conquers Gaul, vines spread up the Rhône and, over the next centuries, to Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Moselle and the Rhine.
AD 79: Pompeii is buried
Vesuvius buries Pompeii, a wine town of vineyards, presses and bars. A wine shortage and price rise followed the loss of its vineyards.
AD 92: Domitian’s edict
Emperor Domitian orders half the vineyards in the provinces uprooted and bans new planting in Italy, to protect grain and Italian wine. It is the first known attempt to control wine supply; Emperor Probus lifts it about AD 280.
The order may never have been enforced in full. Probus later let the provinces plant freely, and the vineyards of Gaul and the Rhine grew.
Talking point: Governments have tried to manage the wine glut since Roman times.
MONKS AND KINGS
Monasteries keep viticulture alive and map Burgundy’s best plots; a royal marriage makes Bordeaux English for three centuries.
c. 1110: The monks of Burgundy
Cistercian monks build the walled vineyard of Clos de Vougeot and study which plots make the best wine, the idea of terroir behind Burgundy’s Grand Crus.
The Clos de Vougeot wall was finished around 1336. The monks’ plot-by-plot knowledge underlies the Burgundy classification of Grand and Premier Crus.
1152: Bordeaux becomes English
Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Henry Plantagenet, soon Henry II of England. For 300 years Bordeaux is English, and its light red wine, claret, becomes England’s wine.
English demand built Bordeaux’s wine trade; claret comes from the French clairet, a light red.
Talking point: Britain’s love of claret began with a royal marriage in 1152; London is still the centre of the fine-wine trade.
1453: Bordeaux lost
France wins the Battle of Castillon and Bordeaux is French again, but the trade with England carries on and Bordeaux keeps its eye on export markets.
GLASS, CORK AND MERCHANTS
Strong bottles and corks let wine age; London merchants, treaties and the first named estates create fine wine.
1630s: The strong English bottle
English glassmakers, firing coal furnaces, make dark, strong bottles. With a driven cork, wine can now be kept and aged in bottle, not just drunk young from the cask.
1663: Ho Bryan in London
Samuel Pepys records drinking "Ho Bryan" at a London tavern: Château Haut-Brion, the first Bordeaux estate sold under its own name.
The diary entry is dated 10 April 1663, at the Royal Oak Tavern in Lombard Street. Haut-Brion’s owner, Arnaud de Pontac, also opened a fashionable London tavern.
Talking point: Haut-Brion was a brand in London in 1663, the beginning of named estates and fine wine.
1668: Dom Pérignon
Dom Pierre Pérignon becomes cellar master at the abbey of Hautvillers. He did not invent sparkling Champagne, as legend has it, but improved blending and quality.
English scientist Christopher Merret had described adding sugar to make wine sparkle in 1662, and stronger English bottles helped hold the pressure.
1698: London’s wine merchants
A grocer’s shop opens at 3 St James’s Street in London, later Berry Bros. & Rudd, still trading on the same site: London’s wine merchants become a world trade.
1703: The Methuen Treaty
England and Portugal agree lower duty on Portuguese wine than on French. Port, fortified for the voyage, becomes the Englishman’s wine.
The treaty swapped English woollens into Portugal for lower duties on Portuguese wine in England. Brandy added to stop fermentation made the sweet, strong wine that survived the sea voyage.
Talking point: A trade treaty of 1703 made Port: tariffs have shaped wine for 300 years, from Methuen to the US tariffs of 2019.
1716: Chianti’s borders
Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany defines the boundaries of Chianti and three other areas, one of the first legal wine regions.
1737: Tokaji’s vineyards classified
A royal decree defines Tokaj in Hungary as a closed wine region, and its vineyards are ranked. Tokaji sweet wine is the wine of Europe’s royal courts.
1756: The Douro demarcated
Portugal’s Marquis of Pombal marks out the Douro valley with stone posts: the first demarcated and regulated wine region in the world, to protect Port.
The Real Companhia Velha was set up to control quality and the trade; boundary stones, marcos, still stand in the valley.
1766: The first wine auctions
James Christie holds his first sale in London; wine is sold at auction from the start. Auctions become the place where old wines find a price.
1787: Jefferson in Bordeaux
Thomas Jefferson, US minister to France, tours the vineyards of Bordeaux and Burgundy, ranks the estates and ships cases home. America’s first fine-wine collector.
THE GOLDEN AGE AND THE APHID
The 1855 classification and cheaper duty make claret Britain’s wine, until a tiny insect destroys Europe’s vineyards.
1855: The 1855 classification
For the Paris Exhibition, Bordeaux’s brokers rank the red wines of the Médoc (and Haut-Brion) into five growths by price. The list is still used: only one change in 170 years.
The ranking was based on the prices the châteaux had fetched for years. Four estates were First Growths: Lafite, Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion; Sauternes was ranked separately.
Talking point: The 1855 classification was a broker’s price list. Brokers have always been at the heart of fine wine.
1860–61: Gladstone’s claret
The Cobden trade treaty with France and Chancellor Gladstone’s budgets cut the duty on light wines and let grocers sell wine by the bottle. Claret drinking in Britain booms.
The 1860 duty cut and the 1861 Single Bottle Act let grocers and shopkeepers sell wine to take home, a new mass market for claret and the start of wine in British shops.
Talking point: Lower duty in 1860 turned claret into Britain’s everyday fine wine. Duty still decides what Britain drinks.
1863: Phylloxera arrives
A tiny aphid from America, phylloxera, appears in the southern Rhône. Over the next 30 years it kills most of Europe’s vines. The cure: grafting European vines onto American roots.
The louse attacks vine roots. Planting European vines onto resistant American rootstock saved the industry; a few ungrafted vineyards survive on sandy soils.
Talking point: Almost every great European vineyard today grows on American rootstock, because of phylloxera.
1866: Pasteur studies wine
Louis Pasteur publishes his study of wine, showing yeast and microbes drive fermentation and spoilage: the beginning of modern winemaking.
RULES, RIOTS AND PROHIBITION
Champagne riots, the first appellation laws, Prohibition in America and two world wars.
1911: The Champagne riots
Growers in the Marne riot over cheap grapes brought in from outside the region. The law draws Champagne’s borders soon after.
1920–1933: Prohibition in America
The US bans the sale of alcohol for thirteen years. Wineries close or make sacramental wine and grape juice; the American wine industry takes decades to recover.
1935: Appellation contrôlée
France creates the appellation system, setting where each named wine may come from, which grapes it may use and how it is made. Italy, Spain and others follow.
The INAO (national institute of appellations) was created in 1935. Italy’s DOC followed in 1963, Spain’s DO system grew from the 1930s.
Talking point: An appellation guarantees origin, not quality: the producer and the vintage still decide the price.
1940–1945: Wine at war
Germany occupies France and buys or takes its finest wines; growers hide bottles behind false walls. The 1945 vintage, small and great, celebrates the peace.
THE MODERN WINE WORLD
California beats France in a blind tasting, a new critic changes the market and Bordeaux’s great vintages become collectibles.
1968: The first Super Tuscan
Sassicaia, a Cabernet from Bolgheri made outside the Italian rules, is first sold. Super Tuscans show that great wine can come from anywhere.
1973: Mouton becomes a First Growth
After a long campaign by Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild is promoted from second to first growth: the only change to the 1855 ranking.
1976: The Judgment of Paris
In a blind tasting in Paris organised by English merchant Steven Spurrier, French judges place a California Chardonnay and Cabernet ahead of top Burgundy and Bordeaux.
The winners were Chateau Montelena 1973 Chardonnay and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon. A Time magazine journalist made it world news.
Talking point: In 1976 California beat France blind. Fine wine became global, and so did the market for it.
1982–83: The 1982 vintage and Parker
American critic Robert Parker praises Bordeaux 1982 when others hesitate. The vintage is a triumph, and critics’ 100-point scores begin to drive prices.
Parker’s newsletter, The Wine Advocate, and his 100-point scale became the reference for buyers in the US and Asia; prices of top Bordeaux rose with high scores.
Talking point: Since 1982, a critic’s score can move a wine’s price overnight.
FINE WINE AS AN ASSET
A wine exchange, an index and buyers in Asia turn the great wines into a traded market, with a boom and a bust.
1990s: The New World arrives
Australia, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa win British drinkers with ripe, fruity wines named by grape variety. Australia overtakes France in UK supermarkets in the 2000s.
2000: A fine-wine exchange
Two former stockbrokers found Liv-ex in London, an exchange for wine merchants. Its index, the Fine Wine 100, becomes the market’s benchmark.
Liv-ex publishes indices such as the Fine Wine 100, and trades between merchants. Several exchanges and trading platforms followed.
Talking point: Since 2000 fine wine has had an exchange and a price index, like any other asset class.
2008: Hong Kong scraps wine duty
Hong Kong abolishes duty on wine. It becomes Asia’s wine hub, and buyers from Hong Kong and mainland China pour into Bordeaux.
Hong Kong cut wine duty from 40% to 20% in March 2007 and to zero in February 2008. Auction houses moved big sales there.
Talking point: Hong Kong cut wine duty to zero in 2008; it is still the biggest buyer of fine wine from London.
2011: The Lafite peak
Chinese demand drives Château Lafite and the First Growths to record prices in mid-2011. Prices then fall by a third or more over the next three years.
Lafite’s name is easy to say in Chinese and it became the status wine of the boom. The market index fell from mid-2011 to 2014.
Talking point: Fine wine has cycles: the 2011 peak was driven by one buyer, China, and it took years to recover.
RECORDS, TARIFFS AND CLIMATE
Record auction prices, trade wars, a new UK duty system, a warming climate and a world drinking less but better.
2018: A bottle for $558,000
A 1945 Romanée-Conti from Burgundy sells at Sotheby’s in New York for $558,000, the record for a bottle of wine at auction.
The bottle, from the last vintage before the old vines were replanted, sold on 13 October 2018. A second bottle sold for $496,000 the same day.
Talking point: Burgundy took over from Bordeaux as the most valuable fine wine in the 2010s: tiny production, global demand.
2019: US tariffs on European wine
In an aircraft-subsidy dispute, the US puts a 25% tariff on many French, Spanish, German and UK still wines from October 2019. It is suspended in 2021.
2020–2024: China’s tariffs on Australia
China puts duties of up to about 218% on Australian wine in 2020, wiping out Australia’s biggest export market. They are lifted in March 2024 and trade returns.
Australian wine exports to China were worth about A$1.1 billion a year before the duties. The duties were removed on 29 March 2024.
Talking point: One decision in Beijing took Australia’s biggest wine market away overnight. Trade policy is a risk to price into any wine.
2023: Duty by strength
From 1 August 2023 UK alcohol duty is charged on the strength of each drink. Wines between 11.5% and 14.5% kept a flat-rate easement until February 2025.
Duty is now per litre of alcohol in strength bands; a temporary easement treated most wines between 11.5% and 14.5% as 12.5% until 1 February 2025.
Talking point: Since 2023 a stronger wine pays more UK duty; a 75cl bottle at 13.5% now carries about £3.10.
2023–2025: The fine-wine correction
After the post-pandemic boom, secondary-market prices for many fine wines fall from their 2022 highs, with Burgundy and Champagne leading the drop.
Higher interest rates and a stronger dollar weighed on collectors after 2022; prices for many Burgundies and Champagnes fell furthest after rising most.
Talking point: Fine wine fell after 2022 as it did after 2011; falls have been followed by recoveries, but timing is never certain.
2025: Less wine, better wine
The international wine body OIV reports world consumption in 2024 at its lowest since 1961, as younger drinkers drink less. Production is low too, after poor harvests.
OIV estimated world consumption in 2024 at about 214 million hectolitres.
Talking point: The world drinks less wine but more of the best: fine wine is a small, scarce part of a shrinking market.
Today: English sparkling and a warming climate
Warmer summers move the map: England’s chalk soils now make sparkling wine that wins against Champagne, while hot vintages challenge the south.
English and Welsh vineyards have grown several-fold since 2000, mostly for traditional-method sparkling wine from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Talking point: Climate change is redrawing the wine map. The Wine Terminal’s Vintage Watch tracks every season.