A Toast For Jesus!

A few years ago I wrote an article for Easter on what the wines were like in Jesus’ time. It got me a little hate mail, so I thought in the spirit of controversy I would write somewhat of a follow up for Easter this year. Afterall, you already know what kind of wine to pair with your deviled eggs, right?

A couple of years ago while traveling I purchased a book by one of my favorite authors, Ann Rice. Ann is an amazing “period” writer. This means that she does extensive research prior to writing any book, and is very accurate in her detailed descriptions of scenes. She is best known for her books on vampires. I don’t think that she saw Jesus as a vampire, but was trying out a whole new genre. I don’t think it was too successful, because she’s back to writing vampire stuff again.

Anyway, In one scene she details a relative of Jesus paying off Roman soldiers with what they consider to be really good wine that was sweet. This struck me as a little crazy, thinking that better wines would be sweet in flavor. In today’s world everyone would scoff at that.

Knowing the research that Mrs. Rice does in her writings led me to do more research myself on “What Would Jesus drink?”. After all, I know that Jesus was a pretty serious amateur sommelier and enologist. He spoke on the subject many times, and his first public miracle was making a pretty big batch of the “best” stuff.

So, what would Jesus drink? History shows that there were both red and white wild varietals growing in Macedonia and Rome back around 1 A.D.. Vines were trained around trees to keep them off of the ground, and slaves would have to climb up in the trees to prune the vines and harvest.

There are several writings by Cato during this period on winemaking, including how much you could work a slave in the vineyard, and how to best store wine after fermentation. He mistakenly suggested keeping ample headroom in the jars, which would have caused oxidation, turning the wine into vinegar quickly.

Unlike Cato, Jesus suggested that winemakers use new wineskins to make new wine, rather than old ones. The wineskin would have been swollen, with no air touching the wine. This would have produced a much higher quality product.

So, what was considered “Good” wine? Well, I can say that most of my friends would be very disappointed. Wine that people in Jesus’ time considered good was sweet. They didn’t have the ability to age wines well in many cases, so wines were often consumed within the next year after the vintage. There was a very high bounty though in Rome and Greece on older vintages. Surrentines were famous for being stored as much as 25 years.

Along with being sweet, most of the wines produced in that age were combined with spices or herbs. Lavender, resin, and other flavorings were often used producing a mulled or Vermouth flavored wine. Jesus may have enjoyed a wine that was some type of mixture between today’s version of Riesling and a decent Madiera.

Everyone knows that Jesus died on a cross. He was stripped and whipped. A crown of thorns shoved into his skull. He was pierced with a sword. But, the last insult that he had to endure was being given wine that had turned to vinegar.

With all that said, I propose that while you’re eating your lamb chops you propose a toast to Jesus with a glass of sweet wine this Easter.

Happy Easter!

Happy Anniversary!

I don’t know if you remembered or not, but this week is our anniversary together. Two years ago in June George Murdock and Skip Nichols from the East Oregonian sat down with Maryl Featherstone from Graybeal Distributing and yours truly. Our plan was to conquer Eastern Oregon one bottle and 550 words at a time!

Our thought was that Eastern Oregon needed an “occasional” column to talk about wine and wine related events going on in the region. Even though the majority of drinking age people in the region prefer Pendleton Whiskey, Keystone Light or Natural Light beers, we knew that there were a lot of people with growing interest in wines.

Personally, I thought I’d write a few articles and then the space would get filled with something else. Honestly, I figured that I’d run out of hot air before too many weeks, and had even asked a few other people to help me in the endeavor. I really didn’t think that I could write this much, this often, or this “intelligently”. The article would be one of those quickly forgotten things that happened and then disappeared until a few years later when someone would come up with the idea again.

Well, to my surprise I am still writing this column every Friday morning and emailing it off before 6 a.m.. Every Thursday I look around my office and ask myself what the heck I’m going to write about this week. And, surprisingly enough there is always something to write about. Each and every week the wine world changes and grows in so many ways. It really is shocking to me that I still have things to write about, and yet just as shocking is that I don’t have enough space to write about everything.

A few things have changed over the past two years. The largest factor, and one that has greatly affected both my own drinking style as well as the industry as a whole, has been the economy.

The great recession has definitely “moved the cheese” for most people in the industry. Where you used to be able to open a winery, build a beautiful building, and produce oak-heavy, half-cooked wines for thirty plus dollars a bottle is definitely a thing of the past.

Wineries won’t admit it straight out, but they are hurting badly from having a glut of wine that isn’t moving due to price point issues. Vintners that produce overpriced and undervalued products are now closing or selling out. We are drinking wines I never thought would be less than twenty dollars for under ten every day.

Another thing that has happened to wine in the last two years is social network marketing. Twitter and blogging are specifically is changing the way we drink wine. There are thousands of bloggers all over the world, and their network of choice is Twitter. As a wine enthusiast I can read the daily thoughts of Paul Gregutt, Gary Vaynerchuck, or most of the other famous wine writers throughout the industry. My own blog, www.onerichwineguy.com , which started a year ago as a way of archiving this article has hundreds of readers every day. If you are interested in any particular wine you can Google it and know just about anything you want or need to know in just a few seconds.

So, I guess we’re in this for the long run folks. I look forward to many more years with you. Happy Anniversary, and see you again next week!

Enjoy!

WWJD? (What Would Jesus Drink?)

Rather than have an article this week on what to pair with your deviled eggs, I’ve decided to ponder briefly on what ancient wines tasted like, and what kind of wine Jesus would have considered good wine.

Just a few months ago while traveling to Hawaii to photograph some clients I purchased a book by one of my favorite authors, Ann Rice. Ann is an amazing “period” writer. This means that she does extensive research prior to writing any book, and is very accurate in her detailed descriptions of scenes. In one scene she details a relative of Jesus paying off Roman soldiers with what they consider to be really good wine that was sweet.

Knowing the research that Mrs. Rice does in her writings led me to do more research myself on “What Would Jesus drink?”. After all, I know that Jesus was a pretty serious amateur sommelier and enologist. He spoke on the subject many times, and his first public miracle was making a pretty big batch of the “best” stuff.

So, what would Jesus drink? History shows that there were both red and white wild varietals growing in Macedonia and Rome back around 1 A.D.. Vines were trained around trees to keep them off of the ground, and slaves would have to climb up in the trees to prune the vines and harvest.

There are several writings by Cato during this period on winemaking, including how much you could work a slave in the vineyard, and how to best store wine after fermentation. He mistakenly suggested keeping ample headroom in the jars, which would have caused oxidation, turning the wine into vinegar quickly.

Unlike Cato, Jesus suggested that winemakers use new wineskins to make new wine, rather than old ones. The wineskin would have been swollen, with no air touching the wine. This would have produced a much higher quality product.

So, what was considered “Good” wine? Well, I can say that most of my friends would be very disappointed with the wine choices of yester year. Wine that people in Jesus’ time considered good was sweet. They didn’t have the ability to age wines well in many cases, so wines were often consumed within the next year after the vintage. There was a very high bounty though in Rome and Greece on older vintages. Surrentines were famous for being stored as much as 25 years.

Along with being sweet, most of the wines produced in that age were combined with spices or herbs. Lavender, resin, and other flavorings were often used producing a mulled or Vermouth flavored wine. Jesus may have enjoyed a wine that was some type of mixture between today’s version of Riesling and a decent Madiera.

With all that said, I propose that while you’re eating your lamb chops and smashed red potatoes you propose a toast to the ancient winemakers with a glass of sweet white wine this Easter. Once that glass of “good” wine is gone, you can go back to drinking the lesser stuff, like a really nice Zinfandel or Cabernet!

Happy Easter!