ten things

Ten things you may not know about wine

1. 20 million acres worldwide are given over to vines

2. 30 million gallons of wine were lost in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906

3. There are 10,000 varieties of grape in the world.

4. Only 5% of oak trees are suitable for wine barrels.

5. 55% of wine sold in restaurants is red.

6. The first reference to a wine’s vintage was in 121 BC by Pliny the Elder.

7. Dom Perignon, inventor of champagne was blind.

8. Old wine does not turn into vinegar, it just oxidises.

9. Corks were first used in wine bottles in the seventeenth century.

10. As well as burying the city of Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius destroyed over 200 wine shops.