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";
History of French wine English market and Dutch traders. Prior to the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was one of France's largest vineyard owners-wielding considerable influence in regions such as Champagne and Burgundy where the concept of "terroir" first took root. Aided by these external and internal influences, the French wine industry has been the pole bearer for the world wine industry for most of its history with many of its wines considered the benchmark for their particular style. The late 20th and early 21st century brought considerable change—earmarked by a changing global market and competition from other European wine regions such as Italy