National Drink Wine Day

Grapes ferment themselves.

If you put some grapes into a bucket and keep them warm, they'll turn into wine all by themselves. The yeast that lives on the grape skins produces wine automatically. It may not be good wine, but it's wine.

Because of this process, historians, botanists and other wine experts agree that wine was the first alcoholic beverage discovered by prehistoric groups. They believe that the first wine was discovered, tasted, and then deliberately produced about 6,000 years ago.

Grapes may have made the first beer.

If wine wasn't the first alcoholic beverage, then the yeast from grapes was used to make the first beer. In history as in the bar, wine has its fans and beer has its fans, and some historians believe people made beer before they made wine.

The skin of the grapes proved to be essential in this process. The foam of the skin of fermenting grapes is a catalyst to fermenting honey, fruits and barley, which is the start of a good beer.

Wine saved people from diseased water.

The first clear health benefit of wine was that it saved growing populations from the diseases caused by bad water. Any time large groups of people settled in an area, the water, left untreated, went bad. People start dying of dysentery, cholera and botulism as more people moved in and contaminated the water supply.

Wine doesn't kill you. In fact, the high alcohol content from fermentation kills bacteria. You can get 15 percent alcohol by volume in your wine without really working at it, and that's a lifesaving formula.

Wine may have helped bring down the Roman Empire.

We all know how much the Romans loved their wine (watch any gladiator movie and you’ll see the wine flowing).

Over the years, historians have postulated that the Romans' practice of boiling ingredients for wine in lead pots contributed to lead poisoning in the ruling class. The Romans would boil un-fermented grape juice to concentrate the sugar, and then they would add the sweet syrup to lower quality wines and sell them to the rich. Lead poisoning causes brain damage and infertility, among other things. Not every historian buys into this theory, but wine induced brain damage in the ruling class certainly wouldn't have helped the empire.

Wine tours almost top Disneyland.

In California, wine country tours are second only to Disneyland in popularity with tourists. According to the California Wine Institute, more than 14 million people visit the California wine regions each year. Of course, wine is grown in 48 out of 58 counties in the state.

Granted, not all those visitors are expert wine tasters, but the popularity of the tours has spurred wineries to offer not only tasting rooms and restaurants, but also music, art shows and theater. In tourism, as in many things, the wine serves as the catalyst.

Vatican City has the highest per capita wine consumption.

According to Trade Data and Analysis, the 932 residents of Vatican City consumed more than 18.5 gallons of wine per capita in 2014, followed by Luxembourg, whose 500,000 residents drank 14.3 gallons per capita.

Of course, the low populations of these countries push those ratios higher. And it's fair to say that no children live within the borders of Vatican City. But there are smaller countries such as Andorra and the Cayman Islands who come in lower on that list.

So what's the deal? Remember that the sacramental wine is a cornerstone of ceremony in the Catholic Church. If Vatican City ever dropped out of first place, that would be a bigger story.

Don’t sniff the wine cork.

The cork is actually for examination. If you have the good fortune to sit down in a restaurant with a wine steward, you're not going to make a very good impression by sniffing the cork when he hands it to you.

In truth, he's presenting you the cork to examine. Check to see if it's all in one piece. A fragmented or moldy cork might mean a lower quality wine. With the best wines, the cork will display the date and other information, as well.

Women get drunker on wine than men.

This is because women have less of an enzyme in the stomach to metabolize wine. Men have more of the enzyme that degrades alcohol, and, in general, men can safely consume twice the amount of alcohol as women because of this and other metabolic differences.

Of course, women enjoy more protection from alcohol related liver disease if they simply eat while they drink. So if you're going to open a bottle, maybe it's wise to keep some snacks on hand, too.

Most modern European wines are derived from American vines.

The English appreciation for botany in Victorian times led to bringing in American grapes to botanical gardens. Those cuttings contained an insect that attacks the roots of grape vines. The bug spread throughout Europe and destroyed nearly all native vineyards.

Soon after the blight started, a botanist from Texas suggested grafting roots of American vines that are resistant to the pests onto the European vines. By some accounts, every plant in Europe was grafted. Of course, those vines also imported non-native mold and fungus to the European plants, and some native species went extinct.

Global warming may have an impact on wine production.

Scientists issued a report in 2006 that said rising temperatures could make Napa Valley unsuitable for growing several types of premium grapes.

A more recent study by scientists at Stanford University suggested that farmers will still be able to grow the grapes, but not in California. The study, which assumes an increase in temperature of 2 degrees F in the next 30 years, suggests that the growing of Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes could shift to the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Walla Walla Valley in Washington.

The growers need a temperature of about 68 degrees F for the most delicate grapes. In this latest study, they found that we won't lose the wines, but that they may no longer be the crown jewels in the offerings of California growers.