Dominic Sandbrook

But interestingly, they're run not by Muslims, but by Christians.

So the wine trade is monopolized by Christians, right?

Yeah.

All right.

So let's take a break and we'll come back after the break to delve deeper into the limitless bottle of wine history.

Welcome back to The Rest is History and you have not yet drunk your fill because we have talked about four of the key moments in the history of wine from prehistory to the present, and we have three to go.

And one thing that we have been lacking

is one of the world's great wine heavyweights, and that is our own dear country of England.

Some people listening to this may raise an eyebrow at that and say, England?

Wine?

They're quite wrong, of course, because if England doesn't necessarily produce the greatest wine, surely we rank among the world's great consumers.

And actually, now, an Englishman, am I right in thinking it is the English that gave us bottles of wine, Tom?

God knows what it would taste like.

But the problem with wine bottles up to this point, well, certainly for centuries,

is that the glass is too delicate, right?

So there's a huge problem.

Basically, they're going to break.

And it is English glassmakers who solve this difficult technical issue.

If you have more sand, you just got a better bottle, basically.

Definitely.