Modern Age

The geographical discoveries with which the modern age began were decisive for the spread of the vine throughout the world: South America, Africa and Australia became profitable lands for the production of wine. However, worldwide diffusion encounters the first enemy of wine: phylloxera, a parasite that will devour European vines for about forty years, engaging the winemakers in a hard and costly battle, which was then won only in 1910 thanks to grafting. of European vines on American vine stocks. The only areas untouched by the parasite are currently found in the Aosta Valley, in the Phlegraean area in Campania and on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily. As for the technical advances, for the first time, the glass bottle appears as a container for wine that replaces the stuffed flask. In addition, we see the birth of bottling with the cork stopper which makes storage safer. Tradition attributes the discovery to the creator of the champagne, Pierre Dom Pérignon. And also in this period, in the French territory, the great wines from areas such as Bordeaux and Champagne begin to collect fame. The seventeenth century also led to considerable progress in the field of distillation, which, despite having been invented by the ancient Greeks, until the previous centuries saw distilled wine used only as a medicine. First in Germany and then in France, distillates not only of wine, but also of musts derived from cereals begin to spread and become consumer products. These are also accompanied by fortified wines such as Porto, Sherry and Madera and finally Marsala.