MEDIEVAL EUROPE - HISTORY OF BORDEAUX WINE

In the Middle Ages, wine was the common drink of all social classes in the south, where grapes were cultivated. In the north, where little or no grapes were grown, mead,beer and ale were the common drink of both commoners and nobility, whereas vodka and related spirits predominated in much of the East. Wine was imported to the northern regions, but was expensive, and thus seldom consumed by the lower classes. Wine was necessary for the celebration of the Catholic Mass, and so assuring a supply was crucial. The Benedictine monks became one of the largest producers of wine in France and Germany, followed closely by the Cistercians. Other orders, such as the Carthusians, the Templars, and the Carmelites, are also notable both historically and in modern times as wine producers. The Benedictines owned vineyards in Champagne (Dom Perignon was a Benedictine monk), Burgundy, and Bordeaux in France and in the Rheingau and Franconia in Germany. In 1435 Count John IV. of Katzenelnbogen, a very rich member of the holy roman high nobility near Frankfurt, was the first to plant Riesling, the most important grape of Germany. Nearby the winemaking monks made it into an industry, producing enough wine to ship it all over Europe for secular use. In Portugal, a country with one of the oldest wine traditions, the first appellation system in the world was created.

A housewife of the merchant class or a servant in a noble household would have served wine at every meal, and had a selection of reds and whites alike. Home recipes for meads from this period are still in existence, along with recipes for spicing and masking flavors in wines, including the simple act of adding a small amount of honey to the wine. As wines were kept in barrels, they were not extensively aged, and therefore were drunk quite young. To offset the effects of heavy consumption of alcohol, wine was frequently watered down at a ratio of four or five parts water to one of wine.

One medieval application of wine was the use of snake-stones (banded Agate resembling the figural rings on a snake) dissolved in wine against snake bites, which shows an early understanding of the effects of alcohol on the central nervous system in such situations.