24 Facts about Wine - mental_floss List Show Ep. 336 | Mental Floss

Hi, I'm Craig. Welcome to the salon

This is Mentofloss on YouTube, and did you know that wine has been around for at least 9,000 years

Historians say that this was when the earliest vineyards were arranged in the Middle East, which spread around the Mediterranean through the Phoenicians and the Etruscans

The French soon started copying the winemaking process, which is why they sometimes get credit for inventing wine

And that's the first of many facts about wine that I'm going to share with you today, and I'm going to do this without being pretentious at all

I am wine drunk, though. The world's oldest bottle of wine is over 1600 years old and can be found at a museum

in Germany. It was buried nearby in 350 CE, then found again in 1867

Prince Charles has an Aston Martin that runs on biofuel made out of wine

Queen Elizabeth gave Charles the original car when he turned 21. Then in 2008, it was converted to run on former wine

Some historians believe that the Roman Empire fell thanks, in part, to lead poisoning

If that's true, wine probably had a lot to do with it. The Romans cooked grape juice in lead pots to sweeten their wine

And to poison their wine. According to the Wine Institute, where I would like to work, Vatican City drinks the most

wine per capita, at 74 liters of wine per person per year

It's a full two times more wine per capita than Italy. If California was its own country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine, after

only France, Italy, and Spain. Speaking of which in 1976 there was a blind wine tasting in France which has been dubbed the Judgment of Paris Nine French wine experts judged a bunch of wines from both California and France and wound up rating Californian wine as best in both the white and the red wine categories After the results were published in Time magazine the French wine industry banned the event

organizer from participating in their wine tasting tour. Plato wrote that wine should only be allowed in moderation between the ages of 18 and 30

After he hit 40, it'd be a free for all because he believed that wine was rejuvenating in

older people. I'm looking forward to 40. When the movie Sideways was released, consumers started buying according to the main character's

taste. Less people bought Merlot than usual, and more people bought Pinot Noir. Experts

call this the sideways effect. No word yet on whether Titus Andromedan has a similar effect

on wine drinkers. Pinot Noir, mid-size car. Pinot Noir! In 2003, a man named Richard Julin shocked the wine tasting world at a blind tasting

competition for champagne in Paris. At the event, Julin was able to identify the brand

producer, and year of 43 out of 50 different champagnes. The person who came in second

place was only able to identify four. It's a misconception that Charles Shaw wine, aka 2 Buck Chuck, is so cheap because airlines

needed to dispose of their wine after corkscrews were banned. It also has nothing to do with him trying to ruin his ex-wife's winery business

Though she deserves it. The boring truth is, people were drinking less wine in America, so Shaw was able to sell

his for cheap. And nowadays they produce in huge volume and keep all their prices down

It may only cost two dollars, but in 2004, 2 Buck Chuck won the top prize of the 28th

Annual International Eastern Wine Competition It beat out 2300 wines Hippocrates who known as the father of Western medicine recommended wine as a treatment for many ailments including diarrhea lethargy and labor pains He my favorite doctor

In a 1997 experiment, researchers alternated German and French music in a supermarket for

two weeks. They found that customers were more likely to buy French wine when they were listening to French music, and more likely to buy German wine when listening to German music

White Zinfandel was discovered by accident in 1975 by someone working at Sutter Home

According to the company, a winemaker took some less concentrated red Zinfandel grape juice and let it ferment because he was trying to make a stronger flavored Zinfandel

He failed. Some people enjoy mixing red wine and coke together. In Spain the drink is known as Calimocho

I learned this from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. As I learn everything

Speaking of wine and coke, Michael Jackson used to drink wine in Diet Coke cans because he didn't want his children to see him drinking

Okay, I'm going to finish up by telling you some differences between red wine and white wine

Red wine's red, white wine's white. According to a study done by Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, wine drinkers typically

pour 9% more into a glass when the wine is white, rather than red. Also learned that from

The Real Housewives. The general rule you may know is that red wine goes with red meat, like beef, lamb, and

venison. And white wine goes well with white meat, like poultry and fish. Then a sweeter

wine works with dessert, though wine experts recommend you also pay attention to the sauce

and flavoring in the dish, because those rules can change. White and red wine are actually supposed to be served at different temperatures, too

White wine is best at 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit If it a fuller white wine though 55 to 60 degrees is better Red wine on the other hand should be at room temperature so 59 to 64 degrees Or when I in the room 90 Cause it hot A red wine glass should actually have an edge that angled slightly inward so this is

supposed to make it easier to smell the wine's aromas. As for how it's made, both red and white grapes produce the same color juice, clear

The grape skin is the reason that red wine is red. Red grape skins have several thousand

times the anthocyanin pigments, which turn the wine red in production. Another notable difference, according to the Mayo Clinic, quote, the alcohol in certain

substances in red wine called antioxidants may help prevent heart disease. It's believed that drinking red wine in moderation might increase levels of HDL cholesterol

which you might know as the good cholesterol. And by moderation they mean up to one glass of wine per day for women and up to two for men

Finally, I returned to the salon to tell you that in 2001 an experiment was conducted with 54 undergraduates who were studying wine tasting and wine making at the University of Bordeaux

The researcher asked them to describe one glass of white wine and one glass of red wine

They didn't know that the glass of red wine was actually white wine dyed red. Not one of the 54 students realized that they were drinking white wine

They described it as having all the features of red. At least they weren't graduate students

Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, which is made with the help of all these winos

And as we say in my hometown, DFTDR. Don't forget to drink responsibly

Or drink red. I like red wine better than white. Bye