Wine: A scientific exploration edited by Merton Sandler and Roger Pinder, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 拢65, ISBN 0415247349 Reviewed by Len Fisher
KING Jamsheed of the Persians loved grapes so much that he stored them in jars so that he could eat them all year round. One jar fermented, and the unknown liquid in the bottom was labelled 鈥減oison鈥�. Jamsheed鈥檚 mistress, having a bad headache, tried to kill herself by drinking the liquid, and was miraculously cured after falling into a deep sleep. And that was how the curative powers of wine were discovered.
I sat down with Wine: A scientific exploration, a glass of Australian Cabernet in hand, prepared for a good read. And I wasn鈥檛 disappointed, for the first 90 of its 300-odd pages at any rate. Rosemary George, Master of Wine, sets a high standard with her introductory chapter 鈥淒rinking Wine鈥�. Who could fail to be captivated by the information that Noah was the first recorded drunk, or that Dom Perignon 鈥渢ried to eliminate the presence of bubbles in his wine, without much success鈥�?
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The high standard of entertaining and informative writing continues as the authors cover the history of wine as medicine, its archaeology and the origins of wine production, and the battle against the vine pest Phylloxera. (The tale of Jamsheed鈥檚 mistress is deemed so good that it is repeated.)
Then we come to wine鈥檚 curative powers. The editors 鈥� an emeritus professor of psychiatry and a drug researcher 鈥� announce that these chapters should be 鈥渞equired reading for medical practitioners鈥�.
The medical practitioners are welcome to them. They follow the turgid style of conference papers, having been written in the third person, with unexplained jargon and masses of tables and references. Authoritative they may be; readable they are not. Together they form an indigestible mass, even 鈥� or especially 鈥� when taken with a considerable quantity of wine.
Mercifully the final chapter, on the antimicrobial effects of wine, is spiced with the sort of fascinating titbits that characterise the first four chapters. For example, did you know that the Graeco-Roman physician Galen covered the wounds of injured gladiators with cloth soaked in wine? Or that the antibacterial activity of M茅doc wine reaches its height after nine years in the bottle?