Anyone can virtually make wine out of grapes. The quality of the grapes is the first and most important feature in the wine production and only after that are there other factors involved that influence the final product. Standage considers the first distinction between Eastern and Western thught and civilization closely linked to the attitude the two cultures from two opposite regions of the globe had when it came to wine consuming. While Greeks drank wine at formal parties, making it more a part of a ritual destined to loosen tongues and relax while sharpening the minds and setting imagination loose, the Persians, mostly drank beer as a part of their nourishment and even when they drank wine, it was not for intellectual purposes of for the pleasure of savoring it, but more as a display of wealth and power, as it was the case mentioned before. Based on such judgments, the Greeks considered themselves superior in every respect to their eastern contemporaries.

To pinpoint the mark in the evolution of human history, Tom Standage quotes Thucydides who is among the most reputed historians of the world, with his words referring to two of the most important sources of nourishment of the Mediterranean world, where the cradle of western civilization lays: "the people of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learnt to cultivate olive and the vine" (Thucydides, quoted in a History of the World in Six Glasses, p. 52). The cuture of vine rapidly spread throughout the Greek islands due to the vine growing friendly climate and it became thus a beverage affordable to all.

As mentioned before, the technology for wine making sis not need to develop spectacularly since its beginnings in order for the final product to change dramatically compared to its origins. However, the technology related to the preservation, the storage...

Beside having improved and developed the way of growing the vine and harvesting the grapes, the ancient Greeks were the first to develop better means of pressing them. They also started to produce it in quantities suited for the mass production and distribution. Since the Greeks were so fond of the wine and focused on better ways of not only making it affordable for all, but also more and sophisticated ways of consuming it, they also developed a new philosophy created around his Godly elixir. Standage dedicates one of the two chapters about wine to this people who has left its mark on the wine history just as the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians are considered among those who mark the origins of beer in its mass produced and consumed form.
Like, beer, the wine was nourishment, the beverage for feasts, celebrations and intellectual gatherings, but also an element of religious rituals and even medicine. As alcoholic beverage on the table of the poor and rich alike it is still praised for its benefits just as it is blamed for the destruction of families and the perversion of whole societies that fell its victim. It is, of course, not the wine, but the human nature, subject to greed and sometimes the victim of its own inability to keep moderation in sight at all times.

Standage, Tom. A History of the World in Six Glasses. 2005. Walker Publishing Company. New York

McGovern, P. Ancient Wine: the Search for the Origins of Viniculture. 2003. Princeton University Press. Princeton Historical Timeline. Georgian Spring. A Magnum Journal. Retrieved; Oct 18, 2009. Available at: http://www.georgianspring.com/timeline.php