The Georgians claim to be the oldest winemakers in the world with a tradition as far as 7.000 years old. The Greeks and the Romans started to handle with care what once was wild. But it were the monks in different countries who developed the culture and wine-making processes, mostly for their own consumption.

Only in the 17th century shippers took wine vats back from their transport to Bordeaux (France) as part of their payment. Once back from their travel journey, they noticed that these wines had quite a good development during this shipping period. This knowledge made the English and the Dutch settle down in the city of Bordeaux to start doing business.

In the 18th century the first bottles appeared. These bottles were handmade and could be blown in one strike to a volume of around 70cl. Once the wine got into a bottle, traders got more and more interested and by stocking the bottles they also found out that the wine developed differently; slowly and more elegant.

A monk with the name 'Dom Perignon' discovered the process of champagne by accident. In Germany, winegrowers discovered that by harvesting late the wine had a process of corruption (later called 'botrytis'), which gave absolutely delicious sweet wines. Al these developments gave an interesting perspective on the wine culture.

In the 19th century, the wine business was damaged by a grape louse called 'phylloxera vastatrix'. Coming from the USA it harmed the roots of the plants in Europe. Strangely enough, in USA nothing was touched and later on the solution seemed to graft European plants on American roots. But in the meantime, many European vineyards were destroyed by this louse.  

The 20th century gave a boost to technology. This lead to better control and work in the vineyards, better techniques in the vinification process and better technical material to work with. It was also the recognition of areas, classifications and regions and therefore the commercial development of the independence and characteristics of the regions.

The 21th century started with the recognition of the existence of other countries making wine and discovering those. These, so called 'new world wines', often had a very long history but never had any export. Nowadays they can’t be missed in any cellar and are part of the world of wines.