·         The Germans drink and produce more sparkling wine than any other country in the world

·         Claret is the English term for a red Bordeaux wine

·         The Melchizedek is the largest Champagne bottle holding an impressive 40 bottles

·         The average age for a French oak tree used to make wine barrels is 170 years

·         The most planted wine grape in the world is Airen, with over a million acres planted in central Spain alone. It produces a rather mediocre wine but excellent brandy

·         Wine is often called nectar of the gods, but Sangiovese is the only grape to be named after a god, it means ‘blood of Jove’

·         The classic Champagne Coupe was actually modelled on Marie Antoinette’s left breast

·         The Manhattan Cocktail was invented by Winston Churchill’s mother

·         In ancient Babylon the bride’s father would present his son-in-law with all the mead (honey wine) that he could drink for the month after the nuptials. Because their calendar was lunar based this period was called the honey month, what we now call honeymoon

·         Wine is fat-free and contains no cholesterol

·         There are 600 – 800 grapes in every bottle of wine

·         Winston Churchill’s relationship with the Champagne house Pol Roger was such that for 25 years after his death all the NV Champagne labels exported to the UK were edged in black. And in 1984 they named their prestige cuvee after the great man himself

·         Up until the 1960’s 90% of all Australian wine produced was fortified, today they are the 5th largest producers of light wine in the world

·         The first ‘vintage’ to be rated was by the Roman Historian Pliny the Elder who noted that the 121 BC was of the ‘highest excellence’ 

·         The Egyptians were the first to use cork in 4000 BC

·         There is at least one commercial winery in every US state including Alaska and Hawaii

·         Bali produces some of the world's finest rose wines.