April 26th - This Date in Wine History

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Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

  • Birthday (baptism anniversary?) of William Shakespeare in 1564.. he wrote Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used. in Othello.
  • Prince Albert, Duke of York married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923.  It was estimated that the daily alcohol consumption of Elizabeth, The Queen Mother included a gin and Dubonnet at noon, red wine with lunch, port and a martini at 6pm and 2 glasses of champagne at dinner.  She lived to be 101.
  • Felix Kir, French Catholic priest, resistance fighter and politician for whom the cocktail Kir was named died in 1968.
  • It is the feast day of Paschasius Radbertus who’s most influential work De Corpora et Sanguine Domini is about the transubstantiation of the bread and wine used in the Eucharist.