English merchant families continue to the present day to dominate the world trade in Port wines. Until the emergence of the Port trade, all wine was sold for current consumption from barrel. As wine tastes and standards changed to preference for age worthy products, less well known and fragmented regions such as Burgundy became sought after. By the end of the 18th Century the practice of bottle aging had spread widely. The economic success of regional wines lead to further purposeful, as well as serendipitous, experimentation with new wine styles.
Wines produced from such grapes are naturally sweet and unctuous.
E. The fractionation, segmentation and specialization of European wine production resulted in enormous economic success. Previously diversified agricultural regions, became grape monocultures as the fortunes of the wine trade increased. As the ecological diversity of these wine growing regions decreased, the potential for ecological disaster increased. These grape parasites were eventually controlled by sulfur and copper sulfate sprays. In the 1860's yet another new grape pathogen was detected.