9000 Years of Wine: A World History
Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2017
Paperback CA$19.95/£14
This is a history of wine from its origins (as far as they are known) to the present. It’s an updated version of A Short History of Wine, which was published in 2000 and translated into a number of foreign languages.
9000 Years of Wine follows a chronological structure, starting from the evidence of wine as a component of an alcoholic ‘cocktail’ (that also included beer and mead) dating back to about 7000 BCE. More certain evidence of viticulture and winemaking emerged from the Middle East around 3500 BCE, and substantial volumes of wine were later produced in Egypt. But it was Greece and Rome that became wine-drinking cultures, and they spread viticulture and winemaking knowledge to Europe, which in turn extended it to the wider world.
Throughout this narrative, I pursue a number of themes. One is concern for excessive consumption of wine, because intoxicated people can behave irrationally and dangerously and become socially disruptive. Religious and secular authorities tried various methods to prevent too much drinking – from education and limiting drinking hours, to punishment and Prohibition. What was moderate drinking and what was excessive are questions that run through the history of wine (and alcohol generally) for millennia. They explain why wine was one of the world’s first regulated commodities.
Underlying concern for the social and health effects of wine are patterns of wine consumption. As I point out in the book, this is impossible to calculate on a large-scale basis until recent times. We might know how much wine a monastery of 40 monks consumed in the 1300s, but we cannot know how much wine was consumed in the wider community. Still, we can make informed estimates of changes in consumption over time.
Another theme pursued in 9000 Years of Wine is the effects of wine on health. For thousands of years, up to the mid-1800s, physicians believed that wine was generally beneficial to health, especially as an aid to digestion. Although that belief declined (but didn’t completely disappear, especially in Europe) throughout the twentieth century, the medical benefits of wine were restated in the 1990s, when the French Paradox was promoted.
Other themes that 9000 Years of Wine takes up are the wine trade, religion and wine, the emergence of prestigious wine regions and wine classifications, and wine laws.
Reviews
“Phillips has written a rich, fascinating account of the history of this much-loved beverage, giving a whole new dimension to the way we look at it today. It’s the literary equivalent of a drone flight back through time, sometimes swooping low and close to look at the expressions on people’s faces, sometimes pulling back up and high, to see for miles around. His calm, steady voice, peppered with humour, has a wonderful way of bringing history alive and making it intensely relevant.”
“It’s impeccably researched: if you want to know the impact of the French Revolution on wine, this is the place to start. The statistics in particular are wonderful, such as a hospital in Darmstadt, Germany, that got through 4,633 bottles of white, 6,332 bottles of red, 60 bottles of champagne and 30 dozen bottles of port in one year, 1870. That’s where I want to convalesce.”
“9000 Years of Wine is an extremely well-researched account of an industry with a long, rich history and tradition. While Phillips acknowledges that ‘the present status of wine seems healthy’, he correctly points out ‘the long history of wine tells us that we should never be complacent’. Indeed, tastes change as people change. Let’s hope our taste for wine never does.”
“The consummate companion to any good glass of wine, this engaging book delves into the robust history of the beverage and investigates its vitality as what Phillips calls ‘a product, a commodity and an icon’… a comprehensive reading of Western civilization through the bell of a wine glass.”
“He’s as comfortable talking about the hot-cold relationship of wine and religion as he is discussing the advancements in viticultural and vinicultural techniques; he is also at ease, unlike most wine fans, talking about the dead end of chronic drunkenness. A laudably compact and versed telling of wine’s story.”
“Indefatigable Ottawa-based historian Rod Phillips published (via the University of California Press) a new book last year, called French Wine – A History. I’m a fan of his fact-packed A Short History of Wine, published by Allen Lane/The Penguin Press in 2000 (and not so short either), so I’ve been greedily reading this new volume since I got hold of my copy.”