What makes wine one of the best drinks in the world? Is it the taste or the century-spanning history? Both, really. But what we love most about wine is the way it brings people together. And it gets celebrated differently everywhere you go. Some countries have their own winemaking techniques. Others have whole festivals built around it.
So here is a short tour. From Spain to Georgia, five places where wine shaped the culture around it.
1. Greece
Greece has a fair claim to being the birthplace of European wine. One of its oldest survivors is retsina, a white wine sealed and flavoured with Aleppo pine resin, a practice that goes back around two thousand years to when resin was used to seal the amphorae. Not every Greek loves it, but with feta and a slice of watermelon it makes complete sense.
2. Spain
You have probably heard of La Tomatina, the tomato fight. The Haro Wine Festival is better. Every year the locals gather in the town of Haro in La Rioja and throw wine at each other. Bring a bottle, spray whoever comes near you, and yes, sticking your tongue out is entirely acceptable. You wouldn't let it all go to waste.
3. Canada
One of the coldest countries in the world has a speciality to match. German settlers brought icewine, or Eiswein, with them, and it found a second home. The grapes are left on the vine to freeze and pressed while still frozen, which concentrates the sugars. The result is a dessert wine, and Canada is now one of the largest producers of it in the world.
4. Italy
Italy is the largest wine producer in the world, and the folklore runs as deep as the vineyards. In Tuscany there is an old midsummer custom around Saint John's Eve, where a bottle left out overnight in the dew is brought in the next morning and shared. It is a piece of local tradition rather than anything more than that, and it has survived because people like the occasion.
5. Georgia
Georgia may be the oldest wine producer of all. Archaeologists have found evidence of winemaking there going back around 8,000 years. The method survives: grapes are fermented in qvevri, large clay vessels buried in the ground, and left for months. White grapes made this way pick up colour and tannin from the skins, which is where amber wine comes from.
Five countries, and that is barely the start of it. Ours come from two of them: North Macedonia and the Southern Rhône in France. Have a look at the full range and pick somewhere to start.