1. Прочитайте текст и разделите его на логические части.

2. Какие аспекты виноделия потребовали правовых инструкций еще несколько тысячелетий назад?

3. Что является предметом внимания в области виноделия в наше время.

Notes

1. vine – виноградная лоза

2. testimony in praise – подтверждение восхваления

3. regulations – инструкция, обязательное постановление

4. sophistication – подделка

5. dilution – разбавление

6. revenue – доход

7. tax – налог; облагать налогом

Wine has been a part of the diet of man since he settled in the Tigris-Euphrates basin and in Egypt several thousand years before our era. From these regions the vine¹ was carried to all the Mediterranean countries by pre-Christian traders. Grape culture for wine production was known to the Assyrians and Egyptians by 3500 B.C. Greek traders brought grapes to Marseille by 600 B.C. and grape culture had spread far down the Rhine by 200 A.D. and reached its widest extension in Europe in the 15^th century.

Long ago, wine became the normal table beverage of the Mediterranean countries, except for those where religion forbade its use. Even non-wine producing countries, such as England, the Benelux, and Scandinavian countries, imported large amounts of wine. Wherever Europeans have settled they have attempted the culture of the vine or, failing this, they have imported European wines for their needs.

The literature contains many references to the importance of wine from Homer to Hemingway. Roman historians and poets have left us eloquent testimony in praise² of wine. The vine was cultivated and wines were made throughout Europe during the post-Roman and pre-modern period.

Assyrian records indicate that legal controls on wine making are several thousand years old. The regulations³ seem to have been made with the idea of preventing falsification or sophistication⁴ of commercial wines. To prevent dilution⁵ of wine in the Middle Ages, taverns were forbidden to have water. This concept is present in the laws of many countries at present. Various legal restrictions were set up to prevent wines from being diluted or otherwise reduced in quality with consequent loss in sales and reduction in the state’s revenue⁶.

Another concept, developed particularly in England, was that alcoholic beverages were a luxury product and should be especially taxed⁷ to produce additional revenue for the state. This idea is very much in evidence in modern British and American taxes on alcoholic beverages. It is not absent from the French and Italian tax structure.

Finally, in the late nineteenth century the development of public health regulations for foods began and many of these were applied to wines. This aspect of legal control is still being developed.

Маргарита Ставровна Иоаниди

Татьяна Игоревна Расторгуева

Кафедра “Иностранные языки”

Авторская редакция

Считка авторская

43