Modern transport

In the Middle Ages, rivers played an important role in transporting wine, and only those wine regions with access to good water transport (by sea and/or river) were likely to develop much trade. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the advent of a railway system transformed wine regions as dissimilar as the languedoc, roussillon, Mendoza in argentina, rioja, and chianti. Today wine is generally transported by road and sea (although, at the height of Beaujolais nouveau’s popularity in the early 1980s, planes, parachutes, and vintage cars were just some of the means used to race that particular wine to the consumer).