WINE
Natural highs
Text+photography by Jim Hensley
About 8,000 years ago, on the cusp of
where the green hills of Europe slide
into Asia, some lucky person noticed
that the grape juice she had stored in
her mother’s clay pot had changed in
some magical way.
Sure, it wasn’t as sweet as it was when
she first squeezed it, but in place of
the sweetness was a warm feeling that
jumped out of the juice and filled her with
pleasure. She suddenly felt like visiting
her neighbors, and she poured her juice
to the approval of the elders. There was
probably dancing and singing. Before
he fell asleep in the corner, the medicine
man clearly and accurately identified
the new ingredient of this juice, and that
ingredient was the gods. They had gotten
into the juice and turned it into something
altogether different. Everyone took the
following day off.
It must have seemed so easy: pick the
grapes, crush the grapes, let the juice sit
in a cool corner until the magic is done,
then drink the wine. For most of our
history there wasn’t much more to it. This
simple piece of agricultural engineering
spread like wildfire through the tribes of
Europe and the bordering parts of Asia
until wine was part of every culture that
knew grapes. Both peasant and king knew
where to find the good stuff. It took the
Roman Empire to really get the business
rolling, though. The Romans liked their
wine more than most, and learned fast
that carting it around the Empire was
holding back the work of conquering the
world. So they planted the vine wherever
