Wine Route

After his ark stranded at the Mount Ararat, the Bible says that Noah planted a vineyard, harvested grapes, fermented them and got drunk.

From Caucasus Highlights 2015

The story may well be true, at least the part about the wine, since archeologist have found remnants of wine-making equipment close by in a cave Armenia. They put the date of the technology to around 6.000 years ago. My mother wasn't too impressed with the Armenian wine, although she liked the Ararat brandy. It belongs to Pernod Ricard Group, which also includes the Swedish Absolut Vodka.

Georgia also has a long history of wine-making and UNESCO added its ancient traditional method using the Kvevri clay jars to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. The wine industry grew with the Christianisation,  apparently disregarding the situation with Noah. Since Georgia consider themselves to be the third country in the world to introduce Christianity as the state religion, they've been at it for a really long time (since around 300 AD). To what extent you could really call something a country at that time and where the border of Georgia was and is, is a totally different story.

From Caucasus Highlights 2015

In 2006, the wine industry in Georgia was hit hard when Russia placed an embargo. Georgia is now trying to sell the wine to Europe and the US. In Sweden, your can't get Georgian wine in the Systembolag shops, but they are listed. On a totally different note, the Swedish saying "lägga rabarber på" apparently comes from misunderstanding the word "embargo".

There are more than 30.000 lobbyists in Brussels, on a par with the number of employees at the European Commission. Most of them represents various industries. The wine industry is well represented by organisations such as the Association of European Wine Regions and the European Federation of Origin Wines but also more general organisations such as FoodDrinkEurope and the European Spirits Organisation. 

From Brussels 2012

The number of lobbyists trying the influence the EU to restrict access to alcohol is much less and they have considerable fewer resources. I have visited IOGT-NTO's office in Brussels, and it was neat but not flashy.

Ever wondered why all these articles keep popping up in the news about the benefits of wine? And why the connection between alcohol and cancer is not mentioned that often, even though a rather small amount every day can considerably increase the likelihood of breast cancer. Thank you Julia Mjörnstedt who started Ung Cancer for bringing it up!