1.Merlot is more heavily planted in the Bordeaux region than Cabernet Sauvignon.
2. According to scientist Bill Lembeck there are approximately 49 million bubbles in a bottle of Champagne.
3.The word Alcohol is derived from the Arabic language (al kohl or alkuhl). Consider the fact that a large proportion of the Arabic population is forbidden from consuming alcohol for religious reasons.
4.The corkscrew was invented in 1860
5. The largest cork tree in the world is known as ‘The Whistler Tree’. This tree is located in the Alentejo region of Portugal and averages over 1 ton of raw cork per harvest. Enough to cork 100,000 bottles of wine.
6. The most expensive bottle of wine was sold at an auction at Christies, London, in December 1985. The buyer paid £105 000 for a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafitte claret that was engraved with the initials of Thomas Jefferson. Eleven months after the sale, the cork dried out, slipped into the bottle and spoiled the wine, making it the most expensive bottle of vinegar!
7.An award-winning adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood was withdrawn from a recommended reading list by the school board in Culver City, California, simply because the heroine had included a bottle of wine in the basket she brought to her grandmother
8. The average number of grapes it takes to produce a bottle of wine: 600.
9.The longest recorded champagne cork flight was 177 feet and 9 inches (53,32 m), four feet(1,2m) from level ground at Woodbury Vineyards in New York State
10. The word "ton" (metric tonne) is derived from a tun, a wine barrel. It gets its name from the French "tonnerre," or "thunder," from the sound the barrels made when rolled.
11. There's a little story behind the champagne glass, dating back to Greek mythology. The first "coupe" was said to be molded from the breast of Helen of Troy. The Greeks believed that wine drinking was a sensual experience, and it was only fitting that the most beautiful woman take part in shaping the chalice.
Centuries later, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, decided it was time to create a new champagne glass. She had coupes molded to her own breasts, which changed the shape of the glass entirely, since Marie Antoinette was - shall we say- better endowed than Helen of Troy.
12. The most expensive current-release Australian wine is $2,500 a bottle. It is Seppelt 100 Year Old Para Liqueur Port. Every year since 1878, Seppelt has put aside a cask of port and, ever since 1978, it has been bottling a 100-year-old. Seppelt is probably the only winery in the world doing this.
13. Dom Perignon did not invent champagne, it had existed for several years. What he did invent was the mushroom shaped cork and wire cage that allowed the sparkling wine to be safely bottled. Previous attempts had all ended with popped corks.
14.There is a 1600 year old bottle of wine on display in the Speyer Museum in Germany.
15.A morbid, irrational fear of or aversion to wine is called Oenophobia.
16.During prohibition, an interesting product called the 'Grape Brick' was sold to thousands of wine-parched households across America. Attached to the 'brick' of dried and pressed winegrape concentrate was a packet of yeast, and the stern warning, "Do not add yeast or fermentation will result."
17. Robert Mondavi built Napa Valley's first new winery after the repeal of prohibition.
18. The Bag in box was first developed in 1967 by Thomas Angove in Australia.
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19.The first commercial U.S. winery, established in 1823, was located in Missouri.
20. Robert Mondavi started the Mondavi winery at the age of 52.
1.The dye used to stamp the grade on meat is edible. It's made from grape skins
2.In Fairbanks, Alaska, it's illegal to feed a moose any alcohol beverage
3. In Saskatchewan, Canada, it's illegal to drink alcohol while watching exotic dancers.
4. In ancient Babylon, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead (fermented honey beverage) he could drink for a month after the wedding. Because their calendar was lunar or moon-based, this period of free mead was called the "honey month," or what we now call the "honeymoon."
5. In the 1940's, California law made it illegal to serve alcohol to a gay (homosexual) person.
6. While in some countries the penalty for driving while intoxicated can be death (yes, death), in Uruguay intoxication is a legal excuse for having an accident while driving.
7. The Aztec of Mexico used a "rabbit scale" to describe degrees of intoxication. It ranged from very mild intoxication (a few rabbits) to heavy drunkenness (400 rabbits).
8. It's illegal to sit on any street curb in St. Louis, Missouri, and drink beer from a bucket.
9. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is commonly believed to be the only English sentence devised to include all the letters of the alphabet. However, typesetters have another such sentence: "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs."