Five Food Finds about Wine

1. It takes around 2 1/2 pounds of grapes to make one bottle of wine.

2.Before corks were broadly used in wine bottles, wooden stoppers wrapped in oil-soaked rags were common. These would need to be changed at least once a year.

3. Even though corks were commonly used since the 1600’s it wasn’t until 1795 that the corkscrew was patented. Before then the corks would have caps, similar to champagne corks.

4. An average bottle of wine is about 25 fluid ounces( officially  750 milliliters)

5. Most ancients urns found in greece, egypt, and the Mediterranean are ‘casks’ that held wine.  The sealed elongated box that holds them are called ‘caskets’

Wine Quotes:

“Remember gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s Champagne!” ~ Winston Churchill

“Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!“~Dom Perignon upon drinking Champagne the 1st time

“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”~Joan Collins

Events of February 18

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

  • 1871 Harry Brearley was born. Brearley was an English metallurgist who invented stainless steel in 1912.
  • 1885 The ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain was published.
  • 1901 Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner. Because of its large size, he mounted the machine on a horse carriage, with a long hose to reach inside a house
  • 1930 At the St. Louis International Air Exposition, a cow supposedly flew in an airplane for the first time, and this same cow became the first cow to be milked while flying.
  • 1968 Actress Molly Ringwald was born. Two of her movies were ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985) and ‘In the Weeds’ (2000).