Wine is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting grape juice, and the elements that determine a wine brand include geographical classification such as producing country, region, and vineyard, the winery, the type of grape variety used (there are said to be approximately 1,500 types), the production method, type, color, and harvest year (the year the grapes used to make the wine were picked).
Nowadays, there are wine regions all over the world, and although there are no official statistics, it is said that an estimated 1 million varieties are produced every year, and wine is not only consumed as an extremely common alcoholic beverage, but is also popular as a luxury item, a collectible, and an investment.
Furthermore, the history of wine dates back to ancient times, appearing in the epics of Mesopotamia, the world’s oldest civilization, as well as Greek and Roman mythology, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and is also involved in cultural exchange, trade, and invasions throughout human history.
The origin of grapes is very old, and is said to date back to the middle of the Mesozoic era in the Phanerozoic era.
To add a little more, the origin of the Earth is currently thought to date back to about 4.6 billion years ago, and the Cambrian explosion, when all life appeared, is thought to have occurred about 540 million years ago. It is believed that plants moved onto land during the ancient Silurian period, about 100 million years after the Cambrian explosion.
The first land plants were non-seeded plants such as ferns, but then seed-producing gymnosperms began to appear around the middle of the Paleozoic era, and angiosperms began to appear in the Mesozoic era. Grapes belong to the angiosperms, and the ovules of angiosperms are covered by carpels, which develop into fruit. Incidentally, the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs lived, is also said to have occurred during this Mesozoic era, and the name Jurassic comes from the mountain range in the Jura region of France.
The Cenozoic era of the Phanerozoic era is divided into the older period called the Tertiary period and the newer period called the Quaternary period (the age of humans), and it is known that during the Tertiary period, grape plants flourished widely in warm areas of the world.
However, during the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era, the Earth cooled and entered an ice age, and during this time, the habitat of grapevines is thought to have been narrowed down to roughly three regions: Transcaucasia (Western Asia), North America, and East Asia, and grapes are said to have evolved into distinctive varieties in each region.
Of these, the grapes used for wine are Vitis vinifera, which belongs to the West Asian species group (or European grape). The North American species group (or American grape) is Vitis labrusca, which is mainly cultivated for food, and the East Asian species group (or Manchurian grape) is Vitis amurensis, a wild grape.
Grapes are one of the fruits with the highest sugar content, and vinifera means “used for wine.” The reason why Vitis vinifera is considered to be particularly suitable for wine is that it contains sugar equivalent to one-third of the total weight of the fruit, and the refreshing acidity of the fruit contributes to bringing out the unique characteristics of the wine.
The ideal sugar content at harvest is 23 Brix, and fermentation produces wine with an alcohol content of 12%/vol.
Vitis labrusca includes varieties such as Concord, Niagara, and Delaware, but it has been considered unsuitable for wine because it has a characteristic strong sweet aroma like grapefruit juice, called foxy flavor, due to a substance called isobutyl mercaptan, but recently wines using labrusca have been produced in wineries such as Napa Valley.
Wine made from grains, for example sake made from rice, requires the artificial effort of converting grains into sugar and creating yeast, but in the case of grape wine, alcoholic fermentation begins when natural yeast attaches to grapes with a high sugar content, and the juice eventually becomes wine, an alcoholic beverage, which is why wild animals sometimes get drunk by eating it.
Grapes were originally dioecious plants, with female plants that bore grapes and male plants that did not, but ancient people selectively cultivated the few hermaphroditic plants that bore both male and female flowers. In other words, wild grapes are dioecious and cultivated grapes are hermaphroditic, but the shapes of their seeds are different, which provided a valuable clue to the origins of the artificial production of wine.
The oldest known traces of grape cultivation and winemaking found to date are from Georgia, south of the Caucasus Mountains, and date back to 5,000-6,000 BC.
Ancient Caucasian people poured crushed grape juice, skins, stems and seeds into large earthenware jars called qvevris (or Kvevri), buried them in the ground, sealed them and left them to ferment for 5-6 months. The presence of tartaric acid in the qvevri pots discovered at the ruins is evidence that grapes were fermented in the pottery. The wine was then strained and poured into another vessel, and the remaining pomace (residue of the seeds, skins and stems) is called chacha in Georgian.
In any case, the three-point crescent connecting the Georgia/Armenia/Azerbaijan region in the southern Caucasus Mountains, the Taurus Mountains in eastern Turkey, and the North Zagros Mountains in western Iran is considered to be the birthplace of wine.
The story of Noah’s Ark, which is related to the great flood described in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, is that the flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights, destroying all living things on the earth, and the water did not lose its force on the earth for 150 days, but Noah’s Ark drifted to the top of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. After confirming that all the water had dried up, Noah left the ark, became a farmer, cultivated vineyards, and made wine.
Mount Ararat is 32km from the current border with Armenia and 16km from the border with Iran, and the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, written long before the Old Testament, also contains a passage relating to Noah’s Ark.
It is said that winemaking was introduced south from the southern Caucasus Mountains to ancient Mesopotamia, which is now around Iraq and Kuwait. This Mesopotamian civilization was an advanced urban civilization built by the Sumerians and existed for about 3,000 years from around 3500 BC.
The Epic of Gilgamesh tells us that Utnapishtim mobilized many people to help build the ark at that time (2000-3000 BC) and gave them red and white wine as a reward for their labor, as if it were a festival day. This means that in this era, wine was a precious drink that commoners could only enjoy on special occasions.
Incidentally, food production through agriculture is a prerequisite for the rise of any civilization to cope with the increase in population that accompanies urbanization, and the world’s oldest civilization was established in Mesopotamia, located in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, where it was possible to introduce technologies such as the construction of irrigation facilities. Traces of fields for cultivating grapes and millstones for squeezing the grape juice needed for winemaking have also been discovered in ruins from that time.
Similarly, Egyptian civilization developed along the Nile because there, too, people had access to the water they needed for agriculture.
Wine was brought to Ancient Egypt from Mesopotamia, where the royal family established a winemaking department and established vineyards in the Nile Delta at the mouth of the Nile River to cultivate grapes and produce red wine.
Ancient Egyptian wall paintings from around 3000 BC depict presses and jars necessary for winemaking. These date back to the First Dynasty of Egypt and are evidence that people were making wine. In particular, the wall paintings in the tomb of Nakht, a scribe and astronomer to Thutmose IV, precisely describe the winemaking process, including harvesting, crushing, pressing, extracting the juice, fermentation, storage, and aging.
Behind the mural, depicting the harvesting and pressing of grapes, are rows of long, reddish-brown clay vessels used by Ancient Egyptian winemakers for fermentation, aging, storage, and transportation. These are called amphorae, and are the ancient standardized vessels for storing and transporting wine, olive oil, and other precious liquids. For wine, it was used until the introduction of barrels in the ancient Roman Empire.
Amphora come in a variety of sizes, but the ceramic vessels are wax-lined with waxes such as pine resin or rosin and beeswax, which are said to have been invented by the Ancient Egyptians, and their shape serves four purposes:
1. The elongated neck reduces the surface area of the wine exposed to oxygen.
2. The tapered bottom is designed for the following reasons:
* The bottom is punted, and the concave shape allows sediment to be collected in one point.
* It also helps prevent the contents from shaking during transportation.
* It makes it easier to bury in the ground when cool storage or long-term storage is required.
3. It meets the loading conditions of ancient ships.
4. The two handles reduce the load when loading and unloading.
However, before cork was discovered, it was a challenge for the ancients to successfully seal an amphorae of wine in a way that prevented oxygen from entering the vessel while at the same time allowing carbon dioxide to escape so that it did not build up inside.
At first, the ancient Egyptians made small holes and sealed them with clay stoppers, but later they began to mix leaves and reeds with wet clay to make stoppers. However, wine oxidized or acquired a resinous flavor, so herbs, honey, sweeteners, etc. were added to mask this, and the flavor of the wine varied depending on the type and amount of these mixtures. In fact, ancient Greek wines were divided into three colors: white, red, and black, and the taste categories were sweet, honeyed, ripe, and soft. Later, cloth and wax came to be used, and it was only much later that cork, which is the common stopper today, came to be used.
Another noteworthy point is that during the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, 26 amphorae were found, and although the wine had already evaporated, they still had an inscription describing the wine, like a modern wine label, recording the name of the wine, source, vintage, and vintner, which shows the special respect shown to winemakers by the royal family.
“Year Four. Wine of very good quality of the House-of-Aton of the Western River. Chief vintner Khay.”
Around 1500 BC, the Phoenicians established city-states in Sidon and Tyre in present-day Lebanon and were active in maritime trade.
Cedar of Lebanon, which grew naturally in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Phoenicians were based, was known as a strong wood and was used to build ships that could withstand long voyages, and was also exported to ancient Egypt as an important trade item.
Wine was also one of the important trade items, and the Phoenicians introduced wine and wine-brewing techniques to ancient Greece, and further traveled around the islands of the Aegean Sea, contributing to the establishment of wine culture. It is said that a Phoenician ship discovered off the coast of Israel was loaded with a large number of amphorae. Furthermore, the Phoenician alphabet was the prototype of the alphabet, and it can be inferred that the Phoenicians also played a role in spreading culture along the Mediterranean coast.
The size of amphorae varied depending on the era and region, but the most common size for ancient Greek amphorae was about 40 liters, and for ancient Roman amphorae it was about 26 liters.
In addition, the oldest glass objects discovered today are beads, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia around 3500 BC. Later, it was Phoenician glass craftsmen who invented the technique of blown glass production, and after the Roman Empire conquered the Syro-Palestinian region in 63 BC, the Roman army brought skilled glass craftsmen back to Rome and carefully protected them. Until then, glass crafts were made by pouring raw materials into a mold, and they were thick and had limitations in mass production, but the glassblowing method made it possible to mass-produce thin and transparent glasswork, which laid the foundation for the widespread use of wine glasses and wine bottles in later generations.
In the early days, glass wine containers were blown glass and had a spherical shape that was easy to shape, were light green, and were placed in baskets made of woven willow. Meanwhile, cork stoppers began to be used in England in the early 16th century, but it was not until the 1790s that glass wine bottles took on the modern cylindrical shape with a long neck and a long, narrow shape compared to the base area.
Incidentally, the first corkscrew patent was obtained in 1795 by the British Reverend Samuel Henshall for the cork opener commonly known as the Henshall. The idea was to incorporate a button between the shank and the worm, which would compress and rotate the cork once the worm was fully inserted, breaking any bond that may have existed between the cork and the bottle.
Variations on the simple direct-pull corkscrew designed by Henshall are known as the Henshall type, but up until the 20th century many different styles were produced, including handles with stylish carved bone, handles shaped like beehives, brass shanks with various engravings, and discs shaped like dogs’ teeth or claws rather than buttons.
Another interesting item is the Lund single-lever corkscrew, known as the London lever corkscrew, was manufactured by William Lund and William Edward Hipkins and patented in 1855 in London, England. It has a hinged steel lever that lifts a wire worm (i.e. the corkscrew) to remove the cork from the bottle.
There are many other patented cork openers in existence, and it can be said that a lot of wisdom has gone into finding a way to remove a cork as easily, efficiently and elegantly as possible.
In ancient Greece, wine was considered an essential commodity, and Thucydides even said that the Mediterranean people learned to cultivate olive oil and grapevines, which led to the flourishing of civilization. In any case, ruins related to grape cultivation and winemaking, such as presses, containers with traces of wine, charred pips, and tightly pressed skins, have been discovered in many parts of the Greek peninsula, Macedonia, and even on Mediterranean islands such as Crete (Minoan civilization).
In Greek mythology, Dionysus (known as Bacchus in Roman mythology) is the god of fertility, wine, and theater. The Anthesteria festival, held in February at the beginning of spring, is one of the most important festivals in Athens in honor of Dionysus.
Symposiums, where wise men exchange ideas and debate, were held many times over the course of hours or days, so wine was diluted with water to delay intoxication in order to maintain a sense of calm and mental vitality. It is said that ancient Greek intellectuals also sought refined ways of drinking wine, adding herbs and spices, or placing importance on how and with what to mix the wine in a krater.
Wine is said to have been introduced from ancient Greece to ancient Rome, which was established as a republican city-state around 1000 BC.
Ancient Rome expanded its power through repeated invasions and conquests, controlling vast territories throughout the Mediterranean region, but at the same time it played an extremely important role in spreading and establishing wine culture around the world.
For example, ancient Romans traded with the indigenous peoples of Gaul and Germania before their invasions, and expanded vineyards and wine-producing areas to regions and countries within and outside their territories to ensure a stable supply of wine, bringing with them all kinds of innovative techniques and knowledge about wine, from grape cultivation to brewing and distribution.
The ancient Roman wine-making process, which involves the harvesting, pressing, fermentation, and aging of grapes, has been passed down to the present day, and they actively introduced cleaner working methods that help reduce wine spoilage and avoid impurities and contamination.
They evaluated the climate and soil of the region and selected the ideal grape varieties that could thrive under those conditions. They began using trellises to support the grapes and promote better growth, and they devised effective pruning methods that had a significant impact on the yield and quality of the grapes.
They also developed many techniques to address, improve, and solve problems that arose in the various stages of winemaking, and many of these practices and customs are still in use today.
Furthermore, it was the ancient Romans who created the predecessor of the modern-day wine appellation system, based on the reputation of each region.
The ancient Romans encountered many cultures in the course of trade, invasions, and expeditions, and quickly absorbed and creatively developed the technologies of other countries that were effectively used. Wooden barrels were one of them, and the ancient Romans discovered that beer was being transported in wooden barrels tied with metal hoops, invented by the Celts (Gauls).
The ancient Roman army led by Julius Caesar invaded Gaul (present-day France), Germania, and Britain. The Commentarii de Bello Gallico is a record of the military campaign that took place from 58 BC to 51 (50) BC.
In preparation for long-distance expeditions, the ancient Roman army abolished fragile amphorae and adopted wooden barrels, which were stronger than clay, much lighter in weight, and could be turned sideways, to store and transport wine. By the early 1st century AD, wooden barrels were in common use in ancient Rome, and by the 3rd century AD, the transition to using wooden barrels for aging, storing, and transporting wine was complete, bringing to an end the use of clay containers for wine after roughly 5,500 years.
Due to the influence of Mesopotamian civilization, early barrels were made of palm, which is difficult to bend, but later in Europe the material changed to fir, cherry, chestnut, walnut, etc., which are easier to obtain and bend. Over time, winemakers realized that wine stored in oak barrels had better color, flavor, aroma, and texture than other woods, and oak barrels became the common way to store and age wine.
Aging in oak barrels makes wine appear softer and fuller, and deepens its color. The tannins in the oak are transferred to the wine and combine with the tannins from the grape skins, giving the wine more complex flavors and aromas. The phenols also impart aromas of vanilla, butterscotch, coconut, clove, and smoke, as well as a touch of sweetness.
In short, the rise of Ancient Rome not only contributed greatly to wine production, but also spread grape cultivation and winemaking to other parts of France and Europe, including Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne, with the invading Roman armies, and their influence and techniques are still passed down to this day.
In fact, the ancient Roman Empire encouraged the spread of Christianity and winemaking, and wine production became established in France and other parts of Europe.
Then, with the arrival of the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, it is said that wine was first introduced to Japan by traders and missionaries in 1483, and according to the Gohokoinki (後法興院記), a diary of an aristocrat from the late Muromachi period to the early Sengoku period, a member of the Konoe family, who was the regent (関白, kanpaku), is said to have drank chinta-shu (珍蛇酒), which is thought to be a red wine from Spain or Portugal. However, it is said that wine making in Japan didn’t begin until the Meiji period.
In the 1600s, wine was brought to North America by the Spanish and others, and spread to South America, including Chile and Argentina.
In 1655, grape vines were planted in Cape Town, South Africa by Consul General Jan van Riebeeck.
The first attempt at winemaking in Australia is said to have been made by British Navy Captain Arthur Phillip, who brought grape seedlings to the country in 1788, but the attempt failed. Later, Australian wine was produced by John MacArthur, who traveled to France and Switzerland in 1820 to learn about grape growing techniques, and began full-scale production with his sons around 1827.
There were no grapes in New Zealand, but in 1819, the British missionary Samuel Marsden brought grapes to the North Island, and winemaking began in 1852, and in the South Island around 1875.
This means that grape cultivation and winemaking, which originated in ancient Georgia, made a long and arduous journey to spread to almost every part of the continent on the Earth’s surface.
Speaking of trade, tariffs are a controversial topic these days, but their origins also date back to ancient times. They were imposed in the ancient Roman Empire and Tang Dynasty as a way to earn revenue from trade activities, and in medieval Europe, cities and feudal lords collected them as tolls and market taxes. In the modern era of mercantilism (16th to 18th centuries), tariffs were imposed as a way for nations to accumulate wealth.
Let’s take a look back at history.
Ur was an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia. It was founded in the Ubaid period around 3800 BC, and was recorded in written sources as a city-state around 2600 BC. It was the main center of Sumer and Akkad on the Mesopotamian plain.
At that time, the Persian Gulf was deeper inland than it is today, and Ur was one of the main ports, controlling much of the trade brought to Mesopotamia. Imports brought to Ur from all over the world included precious metals such as gold and silver, and gemstones such as lapis lazuli and carnelian. Merchants led camel caravans to trade with Syria and India, buying and selling in the city’s market, and it is said that they paid a toll every time they passed through the city gates, which is considered to be one of the prototypes of today’s customs duties.
This tax became a financial resource for the king and temples, and was used to purchase luxury items such as precious metals and semi-precious stones, as well as to build city walls and canals.
In ancient Egypt, a tax was levied when crossing the Nile River, and it can be seen that ancient rulers developed this as a source of revenue by imposing customs duties and tolls on merchants involved in trade and other travelers.
In fact, the oldest record of taxation can be found in the Code of Hammurabi in ancient Mesopotamia, where kings collected crops and livestock as taxes in order to strengthen their military and maintain public works such as irrigation systems to prevent floods and the construction of huge cities.
Furthermore, in the early days of ancient Egyptian civilization, pharaohs traveled around the country every year with their aides to evaluate the assets of taxpayers, such as oil, beer, ceramics, livestock, and crops. In addition, they collected labor as taxes, and crops grown in the rich soil of the Nile River as taxes to the royal palace, which were used as resources and food for the construction of the pyramids.
Throughout Ancient Egypt’s 3,000-year history, the taxation system became increasingly sophisticated, and during the New Kingdom (c. 1539 BC – c. 1075 BC), the invention of the nilometer, a device for measuring the water level of the Nile River during the annual flood season, led to the development of a method for predicting and taxing income before the harvest.
If the water level was too low, crops were expected to wither due to drought, but if the water level was sufficient, a bountiful harvest could be expected, and taxes were set higher.
It can be said that the tax system further strengthened the power of the Ancient Egyptian monarchy and built the foundation for its long-term prosperity, although of course it was built on the back of a people who suffered under heavy taxes.
Incidentally, the oldest tax system in Japan is said to date back to the Yayoi period (弥生時代, c. 4th century BC to c. 3rd century AD), when the class system emerged and managed agriculture began. However, the earliest tax system under the Ritsuryo system (律令制) was the so-yo-cho (租庸調, late 7th century), which followed the equal-field system of the Tang Dynasty.
* So (租) – 2 koku (石) of millet
* Yo (庸) – 20 days of labor per year, or 3 shaku (尺, feet) of silk per day as a substitute payment
* Cho (調) – 2 jo (丈) of silk and 3 ryo (両) of cotton, or 2.5 jo of cloth and 3 kin (斤) of hemp
Similarly, early taxes in ancient civilizations were mostly paid in the form of labor, crops, or property such as livestock, but it is said that payment of taxes in currency began around 600 BC in the Kingdom of Lydia (present-day Turkey).
Around 670 BC, Lydians invented and minted coins from electrum, an alloy of 73% gold and 27% silver with a fixed purity and weight, and stamped them with a lion’s head. Lydian currency came to be used in trade with neighboring Ionia, and is said to have had a great influence on ancient Greek culture.
Around 550 BC, King Croesus minted the first gold coins issued by the state. Early coins were made from naturally occurring ores that were a mixture of gold and silver, and it was impossible to know how much gold they contained. So, to make commerce safer, King Croesus issued coins of a certain weight of pure gold and silver on the credit of the state, thus shifting the responsibility for checking the purity and weight of the coins from merchants to the rulers of the state. This was the de facto beginning of the gold standard and brought immense wealth to King Croesus.
In ancient Rome, taxes were an important factor in maintaining the vast territory.
* Early Republic (from around 509 BC)
・Roman citizens paid almost no direct taxes
・Administrative expenses were mainly covered by customs duties and slave taxes
・Military service was mandatory (1 year unpaid, weapons were provided by the individual)
* Mid Republic
・Introduction of war taxes
・Variable tax rates based on type of property (up to 10 times higher on luxury items)
・Wealthy people required to provide state loans during wartime
* Late Republic (until around 150 BC)
・War taxes were abolished as the territory expanded
* Imperial Period (from 27 BC)
・Tax system reorganized by Emperor Augustus
・Large indirect taxes introduced (taxes for military expenses)
* Late Empire
・A tax system was established for all transactions and services
In the ancient Roman Empire, tax collectors called publicani were responsible for collecting taxes in the provinces.
The publicani paid five years’ worth of taxes in advance to the Roman government and purchased the right to collect taxes from the Roman government for five years, giving them the right to forcibly collect taxes from the provinces. The publicani are said to have raised taxes and conducted extremely harsh tax collection work in order to obtain more tax revenue than the amount they advanced, and as the tax burden skyrocketed, people became dissatisfied and some provinces even rebelled.
Augustus and Nero promoted reforms to change the government to collect taxes directly from the provinces, avoiding the publicani as much as possible, which is said to have stabilized the ancient Roman tax system a little, but the tax collector system was not abolished, and their corruption continued unabated.
As the Roman Empire expanded and grew wealthier, wealthy citizens increasingly demanded luxury goods such as silk, pearls, pepper, and incense from Arabia, India, and China.
Although the Roman Empire exported large quantities of metal products, glassware, and wine, it imported a much larger amount of luxury goods. The Roman Empire imposed a high tariff, known as tetarte, of 25% on these imports. It is said that the tax revenue was enough to cover about one-third of Rome’s military budget.
In today’s interconnected global economy, raising taxes and tariffs will lead to cost-push inflation, which will not only hit the poor hardest, but will also slow economic activity for the general public and potentially lead to a recession. This means that any economic manipulation, whether through a surge in the prices of goods and services or through increased taxes such as sales taxes, will hit the poorest in the hierarchy first.
In the case of the ancient Roman Empire, merchants found ways to avoid paying tariffs to the Roman authorities.
The long borders of the empire allowed merchants to avoid customs checkpoints, especially when traveling overland. This led to a sharp decline in tariff revenues, which were used to finance the maintenance of the Roman army, while at the same time contributing to the rise of the black market.
This not only had a direct impact on the authority of the imperial government in the future, such as a decrease in customs revenues and discontent in the military, but also led to a further deterioration of the social conditions faced by the people, such as heavy taxes and economic collapse.
The Third Century Crisis was a period of about 50 years from 235 to 284 when the Roman Empire was on the verge of collapse due to various pressures, including foreign invasions, civil wars, and economic collapse.
It began with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus by military forces in 235, and the Empire faced invasions from foreign powers such as the Germanic tribes, the Goths, and the Sassanid Persian Empire. The reduction of the silver content of currency caused the value of the currency to plummet, leading to inflation and economic instability. Furthermore, the decline in agricultural production and stagnation of trade due to famine further exacerbated the economic crisis. In addition, civil wars and political turmoil in which at least 26 emperors were assassinated or deposed weakened the imperial governing system, causing further chaos. The crisis was further exacerbated by the outbreak of an epidemic called the “Plague of Cyprian,” which caused many deaths throughout the Roman Empire, increasing social unrest, and leading to further economic stagnation.
Even during this period, the Roman government is said to have been working to combat the black market in order to secure customs revenues, among other things.
In any case, in the early days of the Roman Empire, it was funded by taxes from wars and conquests, but as its territorial expansion halted and profits from wars declined, it began to increase taxes as a new source of income.
Diocletian (reigned 284-305) and Constantine (reigned 306-337) were the ones who worked on financial reforms in the Roman Empire.
Diocletian strengthened the tax system and made tax payment stricter. He introduced a land tax, imposing heavy taxes on landowners. He also carried out a monetary reform to stabilize the currency.
Constantine further strengthened the tax system and introduced various forms of taxation. He also imposed taxes on city citizens and merchants in an attempt to increase tax revenues.
These reforms improved finances in the short term, but in the long term they would have a serious impact on the survival of the Roman Empire.
To go into a little more detail, as taxes increased, the burden on farmers and landowners became increasingly heavy, and many farmers were unable to pay the high taxes and were forced to give up their land.
The increase in taxes on merchants and craftsmen living in urban areas led to a decline in the urban population, and also induced a shrinkage and stagnation of economic activity and a decline in economic power, weakening the economic foundation of Rome. Incidentally, property taxes and inheritance taxes were introduced during the reign of Augustus.
In particular, after the death of Christ, the religious organizations organized by his disciples expanded rapidly, and in the 4th century, Constantine recognized the Athanasian sect as the official religion, linking the state and faith and strengthening the tax obligations of the people. Roman citizens and peasants suffering under heavy taxes were forced to donate their assets and land to nobles and landowners and become their vassals.
A small number of wealthy nobles and landowners came to control enormous assets and vast tracts of land, and the lives of citizens and peasants became even more impoverished, leading to the collapse of society.
As a result, peasants became increasingly dissatisfied with the tax increase, and rebellions against the government broke out in various places, promoting the collapse from within that shook the stability of the Roman Empire. Even in urban areas, dissatisfaction with tax increases grew, rebellions became frequent, social unrest spread, and it became difficult to govern the entire empire.
In other words, the excessive burden imposed on farmers and city dwellers by the tax increases led to rebellions and social unrest, leading to the collapse of the economy. In addition, the relatively wealthy classes sought tax exemptions or reductions and bribed bureaucrats, which encouraged corruption and the collapse of administrative agencies while at the same time exacerbating the decline in tax revenues. Furthermore, the decline in tax revenues led to the weakening of military and national defense, which in turn led to a decrease in defense capabilities against invasion by foreign powers
The combination of these factors brought an end to the epic history of ancient Rome as a form of imperial state, but in subsequent societies, plebeian rule based on taxation has continued to this day, incorporated into the form of satanic cult rituals, with wine playing an important role in these rituals rather than simply being a common alcoholic beverage.
There are many sects of the cult, but whether Jesuit, Gnostic or whatever, they all ultimately lead back to a traditional ruling hierarchy, and the fact that the cork openers in the ruler’s wineries feature the Horn of Baphomet as a motif suggests that wine, cult rituals and taxation were used as mechanisms of the ruling order.
For the cult leaders, understanding wine was both a testament to their faith and an important means of deciphering God’s will. Therefore, in order to ensure a stable supply of wine, production areas expanded in parallel with missionary work, and with the advent of the Age of Discovery, wine began to spread to other continents.
In fact, pastors and missionaries taught farmers how to make wine, and even helped develop new techniques, such as the Benedictine monk Pastor Dom Pérignon, who produced sparkling wine by fermenting the wine in the bottle and trapping carbon dioxide inside the bottle.
In medieval Europe, rural society was structured based on feudal lord-vassal relationships, with peasants bound by a tribute system and having to content themselves with survival by depending on their lords through these taxes. Furthermore, as the church’s authority and power grew, it became deeply involved in the tax system, and believers were required to pay a portion of their income to the church as church tax (titus).
In any case, the tax officials who were responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of the lord or king had enormous power and their collection methods were extremely harsh, bringing fear and anxiety to commoner society while also contributing to the maintenance of the feudal system.
The French Revolution, which took place in France between 1789 and 1799, toppled the absolute monarchy and brought about political, social, and economic change. It began with the unfair tax system under the Ancien Régime, in which the nobility and clergy were given a privileged tax exemption, but peasants and common people were forced to pay excessive taxes and suffered such a financial burden that even wine was difficult to obtain.
Originally, Germany was made up of more than 30 small countries, each of which imposed different tariffs, which caused problems for trade. However, in 1834, Prussia led the formation of the German Customs Union (Zolverein), which abolished tariffs between member countries and created a unified market. This accelerated industrialization and led to rapid growth of the German economy, laying the foundation for a unified nation.
In 1879, Germany’s Bismarck introduced protective tariffs and imposed high tariffs on agricultural and industrial products in order to protect domestic industries, which led to trade friction with France and Russia. Britain was also forced to review its tariff policy, and as each country prioritized its own interests, tariffs became more than just taxes; they became a tool of international strategy.
After its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), France underwent a rapid economic recovery and economic competition with Germany intensified. In the 1880s, France imposed high tariffs on German products, and Germany imposed retaliatory tariffs on French imports. In particular, tariff policies on wine and steel deepened the conflict between the two countries, and this tariff war was not merely an economic issue; it increased political tensions between the two countries and eventually became a distant cause of World War I.
On October 24, 1929, the Wall Street stock market experienced an unprecedented crash. People lost their fortunes overnight, and as banks collapsed one after another, the world economy was led to a rapid collapse. Governments around the world sought ways to revive the economy, and many implemented protectionist policies such as imposing high tariffs on imports, but this only made the situation worse. Incidentally, economic collapses that induce recessions or depressions have historically tended to occur in October.
In 1930, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which significantly raised tariffs on more than 20,000 imported items. Rather than protecting the country, this tariff policy functioned as an accelerator of the global economic collapse, and had a fatal impact. Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other countries introduced retaliatory tariffs as a countermeasure, and international trade contracted even more rapidly. In particular, the decline in agricultural exports caused American farmers to become even more impoverished, and European industries were also seriously hit.
Britain signed the Ottawa Agreement in 1932, introducing a preferential tariff system that gave priority to trade within the British Commonwealth, France also strengthened trade with its colonies, and the United States also launched a good neighbor policy and deepened trade relations with Latin America. This was known as the formation of economic blocs.
Meanwhile, Germany, a country without colonies, expanded its right to exist to Eastern Europe, Italy from North Africa to the Balkan Peninsula and then to the Middle East, and Japan conceived of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
This led to the division of international trade, which ultimately led to the division of the country into the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, and the formation of a conflict structure that served as a pretext for one of the factors that triggered World War II.
The history of winemaking and wine trade goes beyond the mere brewing or trading of alcoholic beverages; it has grown through deep connections with humanity, culture, civilization, faith, society, and the economy.
Wine has been closely linked to each era, including ancient rituals, the rise of civilization, the introduction of hierarchical structures, the establishment of philosophy and medicine, territorial invasions, exploitation based on taxation, monastic economies and the Age of Discovery in the Middle Ages, reforms against the injustices of feudalism in the early modern period, modern depressions, trade frictions and wars, and recent environmental awareness, and so it can be said to be a witness to history.
Looking at the history of wine can lead to a deeper understanding between humanity and nature, and between the individual and the world, and may provide a foundation for living a better and more peaceful life as an individual, in accordance with our innate mission, destiny and life.
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Sources and references:
The Coordinated Assault on Your Brain and How to Defend Yourself Against Every Attac
The covid mRNA “vaccines” are a bioweapon and a tool for depopulation
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