Cattle blood

Become a Premium Member today!

Clarifying or fining a wine was done in ancient times with means that are often obscure for today's terms, for example with milk (this is described in the famous wine book of Johann Rasch from 1580), urine (sic) or even blood. In the Middle Ages, the blood of cattle or oxen (and in some cases pigs or lambs) was also used to adulterate wine, supposedly to give it more colour. Sometimes it was added fresh (still warm from slaughter) or after drying as a grated powder. This was punished at that time already partly with strictest punishments (from drinking the own wine in large quantities up to death on the gallows). Blood consists among other things of proteins (albumin = also contained in egg white, globulin and fibrinogen), which means that this practice could be called a kind of protein embellishment (see under Beautification). At the beginning of 2003 the disagreement between the USA and the countries France and Germany, which reject an Iraq war, also led to the topic "cattle blood in wine". The President of the Republican Parliament, Dennis Hastert, had the import of French and German products restricted.

To read the full text, you must be a Premium Member of wein.plus. You are currently not logged in to wein.plus. Become a Premium Member or log in with your credentials .

Become a Premium Member of wein.plus

Voices of our members

The glossary is a monumental achievement and one of the most important contributions to wine knowledge. Of all the encyclopaedias I use on the subject of wine, it is by far the most important. That was the case ten years ago and it hasn't changed since.
Andreas Essl
Autor, Modena

Welcome back!

Cattle blood

To read the full text, you must be a Premium Member of wein.plus. You are currently not logged in to wein.plus. Become a Premium Member or log in with your credentials .

Voices of our members

The world's largest Lexicon of wine terms.

EVENTS NEAR YOU