When Tutankhamen was buried in 1324BC, he, like any important person in ancient Egypt, was given many treasures to take with him into the next life. Yet when his tomb was discovered nearly undisturbed in 1922, those treasures were found entirely unused by the spirit of the deceased boy king…except one - the wine was missing. The jars were still there, but the wine was all gone.
Now any rational person would tell you that it had simply evaporated over the course of the previous 3246 years. But I'm not any rational person.
King Tut obviously realised that overindulging in wine is only bad for your health if you're alive when you drink it.
But once your liver is safely stowed in a canopic jar and you're guaranteed not to wake up with a hangover, it's time to get down to some serious drinking. After all, if you can't get a bit carried away once you're dead, then you're not really after-living!
We know some things about these wines because the Egyptians effectively invented the wine label. Impressed hieroglyphs on the clay jars conveyed such information as vintage, the name of the winemaker or winery and the quality of the wine - whether it was top of the range, simply a quaffer or somewhere in between.
King Tut's wines were red and five years old at the time of his burial - remarkably long-lived considering the recommended cellaring time of the day.
Throughout most of history, both before and after King Tut's burial, there haven't been wine labels. It has often not been considered important to know exactly who made the wine or what grape variety it was made from - its region of origin was considered to be the only thing that really mattered.
In the 17th century, wine was transported in its barrel to the tavern, where it was bottled when it was purchased, with some sort of stopper to keep it from spilling out.
Eventually, glass bottles became the receptacle of choice even before transportation to the tavern, largely due to better glass blowing and the use of a more practical and effective stopper - the cork.
In the 19th century, the choice of various shaped bottles evolved to let the consumer know where the wine had come from. Bottles from Alsace were tall and thin, those from Bordeaux had high shoulders and those from Burgundy had low, sloping shoulders. Details about the winemaker (if any) were printed on the cork.
All these shapes (and others of course) can still be seen in the bottles we use today. The European bottles still use the traditional shapes for their regions, but in Australia we do whatever we want. However, it is fashionable to emulate the bottle shapes of Europe. Therefore, we usually bottle riesling in tall thin bottles, like those from Alsace, and pinot noir in low, sloping-shouldered bottles, like those from Burgundy and so on. The choice of bottle shape is left to the discretion of the producer.
Whether it is ever employed for super-premium wines or not, Australia can be proud of bringing the wine cask into the world. The "goon pack", "chateau cardboard" or "Moree handbag", as it is variously called, is an effective and convenient way to package wine. There is no reason the world's best wines can't be put into them. But they aren't.
Our other contribution - the screw cap - is far more successful. Corked wine might become an unfortunate historical relic if screw caps can conquer the world. And perhaps in a few thousand more years, someone will write an article about some mysteriously empty bottles in a tomb from the 21st century, sealed with a screw cap…
Stephen Thomson is a senior wine educator with The Wine Society
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