Valentine’s day is nearly here and this year is going to be one with a difference given our current government guidelines. With more time to contemplate wine – we have been doing a lot of thinking around wines origins and love and came across one account that has a particular element of romance …
The story dates to 1000BCE, to a warm and sunny Sumeria where Gilgamesh is King. Loving grapes so much the King tried to preserve them in earthen urns. Unfortunately for a grape lover this was not the best way to store grapes unless they were not completely dried. Any liquids that remained fermented in the urn, which was assumed to be poisonous.
Gilgamesh’s first wife, in loosing favour with the king (as younger wives entered the scene), was so distraught she sought to bring her misery to an end by drinking the fermented juice. When the first few sips had no effect she drank more, becoming increasingly amorous and merry. Convincing the King to share in the liquid he too enjoyed the ‘warm glow’, and we are told that not only did they ‘enjoy each other’s company in a way that neither had previously experienced’, she became his favourite wife, and wine was born.
True or not?!…. No one really knows the first origin of wine but this is a good story.
Why wine on Valentines day?
- Hues of passion – red is associated with love and some incredibly amazing wines.
- Longevity – red wine lasts. The darker the wine the longer the shelf life. The oldest unopened bottle of wines is the Speyer wine found in 1867 in Germany, but dated to 325-350AD in Roman times.
- It just goes – wine of any shade goes really well with flowers and chocolates …. It doesn’t get better than that.
- That romantic feeling – drinking wine releases oxytocin otherwise known as the ‘love hormone’.
- Making that connection – as we say at Ashby Wines ‘wine is just a conversation waiting to happen’.
