Random Events that Wine Changed World and Altered History (17 items)

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  (#6) Cleopatra Used Wine to Win a Bet (But She Probably Cheated)

  Wine was always one of this fabled beauty's ploys for greatness. She used drinking to get to know Julius Caesar, and she allegedly had wild drunken parties with her guests. But her most notable use of alcohol was to win over Marc Antony and form one of the most famous romances in history.

  The story goes like this: Cleopatra made a bet with Antony over whether she could spend a small fortune in a single meal. She was determined to impress him and so at dinner time, she brought forth one of the largest pearls then known. She dropped it into a glass of wine, then drank the concoction down. He was, needless to say, impressed. The catch is that she might have made the cocktail using red wine vinegar, in order to dissolve the pearl, instead of plain wine.
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  (#13) Wine Helped Beethoven Create His Music - and Then Promptly Killed Him

  This famous deaf musician lived a fairly short but very productive life. In his time, he wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, one opera, five piano concertos, and many chamber works. And he did it all while tipping back a glass or two of wine. That's right, this drink that has been shown to make you more creative helped inspire Beethoven to create some of the most beautiful and memorable music known today. However, it's also what killed him. At age 56, he died with a slew of health problems plaguing him. Autopsies did show that one of these contributing factors was severe liver cirrhosis, brought on most likely by the sheer volume of wine he was drinking near the end of his life. 
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  (#2) Wine Determined Whether or Not the Greeks Thought You Were Civilized

  If the ancient Greeks thought you were cool, chances are, you really were. And the best way to get those Greeks to like you? Why, give them wine, of course! You see, the ancient Greeks believed that creating wine was a fine art, so much so that they had a god that was focused on drinking it. If you could create wine, the Greeks would consider you civilized rather than backwards and barbarous, at least according to Thucydides, and many alliances were formed when the Greeks respected other "civilized" societies. In short, the ancient world looked the way it did because the Greeks respected other winemakers. 
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  (#9) Wine Made the Scots and the French Best Friends - And Snubbed England

  Around 1295, England was getting a little too big for its britches, and it was making people kind of nervous. In particular, France and Scotland were really focusing on trying to keep England from getting any bigger. So, in order to stop them, the two countries formed a treaty called the Auld Alliance. The Scots, however, got an added benefit of having first pick of all the best French wines, leaving England with a lesser selection. So, in its most basic form, the Scots' love of wine is what kept England from becoming a crazy powerhouse, and kept France strong, too. 
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  (#17) American Wine Agriculture Boomed Because of a Contest in Paris

  The international wine community didn't take the US very seriously until The Judgment of Paris in 1976. In this competition, some tiny unknown vintners from Napa, California, put their wines in a blind taste test alongside powerhouse French wineries. Everyone laughed at the Californians, until they won, in both the red and white categories! After that, not only Napa wines (now a household name) but American wines generally took the spotlight, creating the thriving and lucrative industry we have today. So, if you ever have a Napa Cab you like, you can thank the French for that. (By the way, they're still mad.)
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  (#7) Wine Kept Roman Troops Happy and Healthy as They Conquered Most of Europe

  Wine keeps people happy, right? Well, the Romans certainly thought so. In 200 BC, they began to dictate that all soldiers should drink 2-3 liters of wine for their health and morale. It might sound crazy but this wine, called posca, did in fact have medicinal properties! It's full of antioxidants and vitamin C, and because it's very acidic, it kills all the bacteria in the water, keeping the soldiers on their feet! Around this time, with the help of posca, Rome managed to defeat Carthage, who had a pretty solid stranglehold over the Mediterranean, thus strengthening their empire. 

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