Pinot Egregious Online Quiz | Social History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Thought to be dated at around 4,100 BC, the world's oldest winery is found at the Areni-1 cave complex along the Arpa river in which Western Asian country?

Answer: Armenia

The winery was discovered in 2007 and includes fermentation vats, an early wine press and shards of pottery proposed to have been used for both storage and serving. It predates the world's second oldest winery, found in the West Bank, by around 1,000 years. The cave system is also known for the Areni-1 shoe, an extremely well preserved leather shoe found in the same cave in 2008.

2. Wine reached Egypt around 3,000 BC, and while most of the wine drunk by the Egyptians was red, white wine residue has also been found, notably in pots in the tomb of which pharaoh, suggesting that white wine was in production at least by the 18th Dynasty?

Answer: Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun was a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, ruling between 1332 and 1323 BC and dying at the age of just eighteen. Khufu, Djedefre and Shepseskaf were all pharaohs of the 4th Dynasty. The grape is thought to have been introduced to the Egyptian civilisation from the region of Levant in the Eastern Mediterranean. One most precious of Egyptian beverages, Shedeh, was originally though to have been made from pomegranates but early 21st century evidence suggests that it may have been made from red grapes.

3. The practice of wine making seems to have come to Greece through trade with the Egyptians during the second and third millenia BC. Which civilisation, based on the island of Crete between the 27th century and the 15th century BC provided the stepping stone for wine into mainland Greece?

Answer: Minoan

It is thought that the Minoans traded with the Egyptians around this period, thus being introduced to the way that the Egyptians had been making wine for several hundred years. It is likely that this knowledge passed onto Mycenaean Greece, the name general used to refer to Greece between around 1600 and 1100 BC. The Minoans linked their drinking of wine to their worship of the sacred bull, drinking from strangely shaped conical vessels known as 'rhyta'. These could range from cups sized for personal use up to much larger vessels used for ceremonial purposes.

Wine became a very important part of Greek culture, and the way that Ancient Greece interacted with wine provided the basis of wine culture for many centuries, even up to the modern day.

4. Ancient Roman wine was often stored in distinctive vessels, named by the Romans but already used many centuries previously. What are they called?

Answer: Amphoras

The name 'amphora' roughly translates as 'carrier on both sides' and although it sounds like a Greek word, one of the first written usages is by the Roman statesman Cato. It is so named as a result of the two disntinctive handles on either side of the mouth of the vessel. These are often partnered with a long neck but not always, as the style of amphora changed throughout history.

5. Despite various records of early Chinese grape wine, including a resurgence around 100 BC, it never appears to have become particularly widespread. Instead the majority of Chinese wine comes from which other crop?

Answer: Rice

Unlike grapes, rice is not naturally sweet. Rice wine is therefore made by the fermentation of rice starch into sugars, as opposed to using the natural sweetness of the fruit. Some grape wine was consumed in China, mostly at the court of the emperor during the Tang Dynasty and later by the gentry class during the Song Dynasty.

However the consumption of rice wine was still prevalent enough for Venetian Marco Polo to note that it was the most commonly consumed wine during his travels to the Far East in the 1280s.

6. Moving on from the ancient world and to the New World - which variety of grape was cultivated in order to provide Eucharistic wine for newly converted Christians in the Americas?

Answer: Mission grape

Vitis vinifera is the species used to make almost all wine and the Mission grape was a variety of Vitis vinifera. The grape was so called as it was mainly grown by Spanish missionaries in North and South America. Although they were mostly used for Eucharistic purposes, 'Mission grapes' were also grown for normal table and fortified wines. Nowadays, the most popular wine producing areas in the Americas are Chile, Argentina and California.

7. Which European country faced a 'Great Wine Blight' in the mid-19th century, devastating the national wine industry?

Answer: France

While it may also have affected other countries, the event is generally known as the 'Great French Wine Blight'. The wine industry in France saw 40% of its vineyards out of action for around 15 years as a result of the Phylloxera aphid. The problem was eventually solved by grafting the French vines with aphid resistant American vines although other methods were attempted, such as pesticides and placing toads in vineyards, but these had little success.

8. The wine industry in South Africa began in the 17th when the Dutch East India Company wanted to build a midway 'supply station' between the Netherlands and their city of Batavia. In which modern day Asian country would Batavia have been found?

Answer: Indonesia

Batavia was actually the name given by the Dutch to the city that we now call Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. A farming community was built up in the cape colony as a midway point on the route from the Netherlands to Indonesia, including a vineyard that was the beginning of wine production in South Africa. Over time South African wine has had both French and Dutch influences and now holds a respectable place on the world stage.

9. The Douro Wine Company was established in 1756 to regulate the sale of which fortified wine?

Answer: Port

Also known as the General Company of Agriculture of the Wines of the Upper Douro, the Douro Wine Company was established by the Portuguese Prime Minister, the Marquis of Pombal to regulate the production and distribution of port. One of the first actions of the company was to set the boundaries of the region in which port was produced.

They then went on to force very strong regulations on the export of port, including setting minimum and maximum prices for grapes. The company ceased to operate in 1833 and a similar job is done nowadays by the Port and Douro Wines Institute.

10. One of the fastest growing wine producers in the world is Australia. Vine cuttings were brought to the continent with the First Fleet in 1788, but were they initially successful at producing wine?

Answer: No

The vine cuttings that the fleet brought with them were collected from the Cape Colony in South Africa and were very unsuccessful when the new arrivals tried to cultivate them. It took a lot of perseverance, but wine was eventually being produced and sold by the 1820s. Australia is now a major exporter of wine, having broadened their market away from the UK in the late 20th century.

Source: Author pagea

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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