Wine vessels kept them fresh and free from a vinegar smell. In medieval Europe, the Roman Catholic Church supported wine because the clergy required it for the Mass. Monks in France made wine for years, aging it in caves. An old English recipe that survived in various forms until the 19th century calls for refining white wine from bastard—bad or tainted "bastardo" wine. The English word "wine" comes from the Proto-Germanic "*winam", an early borrowing from the Latin "vinum", "wine" or "(grape) vine", itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European stem *"win-o-" (cf. , "gini"; Ancient Greek: "oinos"; Aeolic Greek: "woinos"; Hittite: "wiyana";
French wine French wine French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world. French wine traces its history to the 6th century BC, with many of France's regions dating their wine-making history to Roman times. The wines produced range from expensive high-end wines sold internationally to more modest wines usually only seen within France such as the Margnat wines were during the post war period. Two concepts central to higher end French wines are the notion of "terroir", which