2022 Candlelight Dinner
Join us for our 2022 Candlelight Dinner on Wednesday, April 27 at Tavistock Country Club. Our speaker for our upcoming Candlelight Dinner is Dr. McGovern, the author of Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origin of Viniculture.
Cocktails start at 6pm, dinner at 7pm and our program starts at 8pm. Tickets can be bought here or you can download and print this form and send a check made out to the Historical Society of Haddonfield. Tickets start at $100 for members, $110 for non-members and include hors d’oeuvres, soup, salad, a choice of 3 entrees, filet, salmon or a vegetarian pasta, and dessert. We will be including a glass of wine that is complimentary to the program topic. A cash bar is available at Tavistock for other alcoholic spirits.
More information about our speaker
By David Stewart: Viniculture is human culture. As we learn more about the history of wine and other fermented beverages, we grow in our understanding of its importance in human biology, medicine, religion, social life, and the very ordering of modern civilization. No one has contributed more to this than Dr. Patrick McGovern, presenting at the upcoming Candlelight Dinner. The author of Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture is celebrated internationally both academically as a leader in the emerging field of Biomolecular Archaeology, and popularly as the “Indiana Jones” of ancient ales, wines, and extreme beverages. He has literally brought a sip of the distant human past to the lips of millions of drink enthusiasts (and they’ve found it tastes much better than that description would lead you to believe!)
Dr. Pat’s (as he’s more familiarly known) official title at Philadelphia’s Penn Museum is the Scientific Director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health. While this may sound as dry as a Sauvignon Blanc, his work has taken him to China where he identified the earliest known fermented beverage, an “extreme” one using a variety of ingredients; to Iran where he discovered the oldest barley beer; and the South Caucasus region of Georgia where he found the earliest grape-based wine. He has also charted the progress of winemaking throughout Europe and early brews in the Americas. His exploration of remote sites is paired with his cutting-edge scientific scrutiny of ancient vessels for traces of ingredients humans might have used to produce these beverages.
His training in chemistry, neurochemistry, archaeology, and history has uniquely prepared him for this work. Not content to confine his discoveries to academic papers, he has collaborated with the Dogfish Head brewery since 1999 to bring to life ancient ales he has discovered, such as Chateau Jiahu from the trek to an 11,000-year-old Chinese tomb mentioned above, and a chocolate-based beer from Honduras. The resulting beverages have been widely praised, and his books, such as Uncorking the Past and Ancient Brews Rediscovered and Re-Created have been heralded in the New Yorker, NPR, Wine Spectator and elsewhere.
The Archaeological and Chemical Hunt for the Origins of Viniculture: Past, Present and Future will be presented at the Candlelight Dinner at Tavistock on April 27. The title may be a mouthful, but as we at last plan to sit down to eat and drink together after so much time apart, I can think of no more satisfying a topic than to celebrate the persistent drive to sustain and enjoy ourselves together throughout history.
Tickets to the dinner and program can be bought here. If you would like to pay by check please print this form and mail or drop off to the HSH office at Greenfield Hall. 343 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield, NJ 08033. Please direct any questions to the office at [email protected] or (856) 429 – 7375.
