The Month of April
April 1100: Schloss Johannisberg, Germany, was established during this time. In 1720, when the whole estate was planted with a Riesling type of grapes, Schloss Johannisberg made history by becoming the world's first closed […]
April 19
April 19, 1783: On this day in 1783 Catherine II of Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from the Crimean Tatars as part of Russia’s southwards expansion towards the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the […]
August 2
August 2, 1828: The Tokaji wine crisis began on this day. In the beginning, the presence of American railway ties between the eastern and mid-western seaboards made it possible for affordable American grain to […]
August 14
August 14, 1889: On this day in 1889 the Griffe Law was passed by the French government. Named after Charles Griffe, a senator representing the Hérault region of southern France who had proposed the […]
September 18
September 18, 1843: On this day, Charles V. Riley was born. He was a Francophile entomologist who discovered Phylloxera's features by reading a French study and proposed a remedy that would include using more […]
July 7
July 7, 1957: On this day, the Barbera wine varietal was discovered. As of 2000, the Barbera red wine grape type was the third most often planted red grape variety in Italy. Barbera is […]
October 21
October 21, 1914: On this day in 1914 the ruler of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, ordered a total ban on the production and sale of vodka throughout the country for as long as the […]
September 26
September 26, 1843: On this day, Thomas Volney Munson was born in Astoria, Illinois. Munson was an American horticulturist who spent most of his life documenting native American grapes. His work had a significant […]
May 5
May 5, 1789: The French Revolution began, and proceeded for ten and a half years. After the French Revolution, the church's final vineyards were divided up and sold off starting in 1791. The Napoleonic […]
January 7
January 7, 1883: Don Silvestre Ochagavia Errazuriz died in Chile. He was an industrialist, agriculturalist and businessman who had visited France in the mid-nineteenth century to study grape varietals and viticulture techniques there. He then […]
