Wine as medicine

The role of wine in the world of medicine had been important from the earliest of times. It was used widely as a medium for the infusion of medicinal herbs and many wine-based remedies were given in such books as The Secrets of Alexis of Piedmont, which appeared in a number of languages from 1555 onwards.

Indeed the first book specifically on wines in English, A New Book of Wines (1568), was written by William Turner, who studied medicine at Cambridge. He warned of the danger of drinking the sweet, heavy wines of the Mediterranean as opposed to the healthy, light wines of the Rhine.