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18. Wine tours

18.1 Wine – the beginnings

The first traces of wine date back some 6,000 to 8,000 years
to Georgia, Armenia and the Near East. Wine passed
through Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations, and today
it can be found on every continent and at sometimes
surprising altitudes.
It all began in 1997, when a mutual friend 144 suggested
we take a course in oenology given by a specialist 146 in the
145
field. The course was organized over 3 years. The 1 , vines
st
nd
and grape varieties; the 2 , the different wine-growing
regions of France; and the 3 , carefully selected châteaux
rd
and estates. For the 3 year, the program changed every
rd
year. So you could take the course as many times as you
liked. Personally, I took it for 8 years. A friend of mine took
it for twenty years.
Five of us signed up. At the 1 class, the teacher asked the
st
25 participants to introduce themselves and explain their
primary motivations for taking his oenology course.
I remember explaining that it was a subject that interested
me, that I had no theoretical background and that I was a
little sceptical about the competence of certain people who
had so much to say about a glass of wine; I saw a little
"snobbery" in it, which bothered me.

144 Paola CAPALDI
145 Anne-Véronique STAINIER, Philippe NIHOUL and Renato JANNONE
146 Joël FRANCHIMONT
166