Accidental Discovery

5 Accidental Discovery My parents sometimes celebrate a special day by opening a bottle of wine. They prefer a special kind of wine called Canadian ice wine. My mother told me the story of ice wine. To make it, the grapes, which are the main ingredient in wine, must be frozen solid on their vine. You might think this is strange. Aren't most great wines made in places like southern France where the climate is warm year-round? Well, that is true. But sometimes a great new product is discovered by accident. And that's exactly how we got the world's first ice wine. In the 1700s in Germany, the story goes that one year, a man was away from his farm in the autumn. The weather turned really cold and his grapes froze by the time he came back. It seemed like a disaster. But the man tasted the grapes and found them to be very sweet. The freezing weather made the sugar more concentrated, and that makes for good wine. He decided to make some wine using these grapes. People really liked his wine, and the rest is history. For two centuries, Germany was the only place making ice wine.

Then, a Canadian got the idea that this great wine could be produced in Canada. After all, the winters are cold in Canada, and that is the main requirement for making ice wine. A few grape farmers began to experiment. They figured out the best process, and soon, Canadian ice wine was being sold around the world. The story of the discovery of ice wine got me thinking. What other inventions came about by accident? Well, to name a few: the microwave oven, penicillin, and the pacemaker - which helps regulate the heartbeat of patients with heart problems. Imagine the world without these three things. Two of them have saved countless lives. And the microwave has certainly changed the way we cook. Life is sometimes like that. When we're looking for one thing, something even better comes along. . . if we keep our eyes open and our minds alert.