Fine Wine Market History

The drinking and worshipping of wines goes back longer than written history. It emerged with civilisation itself from the East. It was, in fact, the Romans who brought the first vines to France, about 500 BC, and planted in Bordeaux at approximately 50 AD. There has been much speculation about the quality of Roman wine, which is quite well documented. It apparently had extraordinary powers of keeping, which, in itself, suggests that even then it was good. The great vintages were discussed and even drunk for longer than seems possible; there are records of a wine made in 121 BC being consumed when it was 125 years old! The most consequential move in history was when the Romans took their vines to Gaul. By the time they withdrew in the fifth century, from what is now France, they had laid the foundations for almost all the greatest vineyards of the modern world. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were not limited to earthenware and amphora to store their wines in. They had barrels and bottles not dissimilar to those used today.

Shakespeare was also a great lover of wine, and left some of the most descriptive tasting notes of the 17th century. Late in the 17th century the cork was discovered. Bit by bit it became clear that wine kept in a tightly corked bottle lasted much longer than wine kept in a barrel, which was likely to "go off" at any time after the barrel was broached. It was also discovered that wines kept in different sized bottles also aged in a different way, acquiring what is known as a bouquet. The wine trade was booming and Bordeaux wines were being exported all over the world. In fact ships were measured by the number of tonnes of wine they could carry. In 1855 Napoleon III effectively started the "Fine Wine Index" when he classified the wines in Bordeaux from 1 to 5. He based his decisions on the quality as well as the prices of each wine realised by the Châteaux over the previous 100 years and, apart from one change in 1973 when Château Mouton-Rothschild was promoted from a 2nd growth to a 1st growth wine, nothing has changed since.

In fact the laws Napoleon put in place in 1855 are still vigorously upheld today and controlled by the Institute D'Appellations d'Origine and EC directives