Winey Wednesday

Wednesday is formally know as hump-day. Once Wednesday is over, the weekend’s in sight (not that a weekend means very much these days, but still). I’ve decided to make this day even more monumental with some trivia tidbits on anything pertaining to wine and wine culture. Keep updated weekly for the factual imbibing.

Answers for Winey Wednesday, the FIRST installment (12.12.2007)

1. On average, 600 grapes go into a bottle of wine.

2. Cork was developed as a bottle closure in the late 17th century. It was only after this that bottles were aged, and the bottles shifted from short and bulbous to tall and slender.

3. Corkscrew historian Ron McLean (yes, a historian of the corkscrew) wrote, “It is unknown when and who made the first corkscrew. The first corkscrews were derived from a gun worme, a tool with a single or double spiral end fitting used to clean musket barrels or to extract an unspent charge from the barrel. By the early 17th century corkscrews for removing corks were made by blacksmiths as using a cork to stopper a bottle was well established.”
However, the first official corkscrew patent on record – England: Patent No 2061 granted to Samuel Henshall, Princes Street, Parish of Christchurch, Middlesex, on August 24, 1795.

4. FALSE! Simply uncorking and leaving the bottle to stand for an hour or so before drinking provides virtually no breathing room. Instead expose the wine to oxygen by pouring into a decanter (or even a pitcher).

5. Recommended tasting order – sparkling, white, red (good job y’all).  Then it gets a bit trickier – young before old; light before heavy; dry before sweet; common before fine.

The answer to Monday’s teaser – when and where was the ‘Bag in Box’ developed?
The ‘Bag in Box’ was first developed in 1965 by the Aussie, Thomas Angove. Cheap, cask wine is also known as “goon” in Australia. The practice, usually by students, of consuming cask wine at parties is known as “gooning”.