December 17, 1662: Christopher Merret submitted the recipe for making sparkling wine to the Royal Society in London on this day. The recipe involved adding sugars and molasses to dry ciders to induce second fermentation producing sparkling ciders. Many wine experts believe the French copied this process in creating their sparkling wines after visiting England. Besides, Merret has been credited with being the first person to use the term “sparkling wine.” The first documented mention of the term in France was in 1718. Merret contributed so much to the sparkling wine industry; he introduced coal in glass furnaces to make stringer glass that could withstand the sparkling nature of wine.

December 17, 1851: On this day, Otto Schott was born. Friedrich Otto Schott, a German chemist and glass expert, created borosilicate glass. Schott thoroughly researched how the chemical makeup of the glass and its characteristics are related. By locating compositions with optical qualities that are close to the theoretical limit, he was able to overcome basic problems in the properties of glass. The optics used in optical astronomy and microscopy have been improved as a result of Schott’s discoveries. As “a watershed in the history of glass composition,” his work has been praised. This development made the way for the invention of the borosilicate wine glasses. The borosilicate wine glass is built of sturdy, aesthetically pleasing glass that is frequently used to serve red wine.

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