by Pascal Ribereau-Gayon

Professor Pascal Ribereau-Gayon is honorary dean of the School of Oenology at Bordeaux-II (Victor Segalen) University, and a corresponding member of the Institut de France. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author

The history of wine dates back to earliest antiquity. It is so simple to make: you have only to crush the grape to produce a spontaneous bubbling from the release of carbon dioxide, making the substance heat up and fermentation start.

Compared to grape juice, wine is more stable because of the alcohol and, with certain limitations, can be kept and even transported. However, the prime reason for its popularity is that people have always liked drinking it, perhaps because of its mood-elevating qualities. But, going beyond that, they have found in wine, more than in anything else they eat or drink, a range of quality and a diversity, raising the "harmonies of fragrance and taste" to the level of an art, just as the harmony of sounds and colours is the basis of art in music and painting.

Ancient wines were certainly very different from contemporary ones and closer to today's piquettes [rough or "off" wines]. Most importantly, however, they had a special place in ancient civilizations, perfectly expressed in the rites of Catholicism. This situation continued over the centuries, with a constant concern to improve quality through efforts on two complementary fronts: selection of the best soil for growing the most succulent fruit and improvement of cultivation and wine-making methods. For a long time, technical progress was based almost exclusively on empirical observation, but in the latter half of the nineteenth century, advances in chemistry and biology were applied to great effect to the production of high-quality wines and, following on from Louis Pasteur, French scientists have played a prominent role in honing wine-growing and making.

Today, interest in wine is on the increase, especially in France, but also in many other places all over the world. Without a doubt this interest in wine, its place in the economy, the literature it spawns and its cultural function owe much to the improvement in quality.

More than any other, French viticulture has remained closely associated with traditional wine-growing areas, where cultivation has now been enhanced by technology. Even though nowadays competition from other countries is a fact of life, France''s place in the production of the greatest wines is undisputed; certainly there is competition, but this is in middle-of-the-range wines.

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