The origins of wine-making

Distribution of wild grape-vines (purple shading) and early wine-making (University of Pennsylvania)

With agriculture came alcohol. Farmers took some time to work up to wine. In China, where rice-cultivation developed independently of the Near Eastern Neolithic, a type of mead was brewed as early as 7,000 BC with rice, honey, and fruit. This is the earliest evidence of man-made alcohol so far found in the world.1P. E. McGovern et al., Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historicChina, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, vol. 101 no. 51 (December 21, 2004), pp. 17593-17598.The earliest alcoholic drink in the Near East was probably a beer made from fermented barley.2M. Nelson, The Barbarian's Beverage: a history of beer in ancient Europe (2005). This partly explains why beer-drinking spread so widely in the West. The habit would have travelled across Europe with the first farmers.

The other reason why wine-drinking was more circumscribed than beer-swilling in the ancient world is that grapes flourish in sunny climates. Grapes grew wild on the southern shores of the Black and Caspian Seas, climbing trees like lianas. They seem to have been first cultivated on the sunny southern slopes of the Caucasus. The earliest evidence of wine production so far has come from sites in Georgia and Iran, dating from 6000 to 5000 BC. Ancient jars of c. 6000 BC have been found at Shulaveri in south eastern Georgia, with the residue of wine still coating their inner surfaces. Similar residues have been found in jars of c. 5400 B.C in the Neolithic settlement of Hajji Firuz Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran. 3P. E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (2003); P. E. McGovern and Solomon H. Katz, The Origins and Ancient History of Wine (2000); P. E. McGovern, Uncorking the Past: The quest for wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages (2009). The earliest complete winery was found in a cave in southern Armenia, close to Iran, complete with press, fermentation vats and storage jars. All over and around the wine press archaeologists found a litter of grape seeds, remains of pressed grapes and grape must, and dozens of desiccated vines. The species was confirmed to be the domesticated variety Vitis vinifera vinifera. The complex has been radiocarbon-dated to between 4100 B.C. and 4000 B.C.4Hans Barnard et al., Chemical evidence for wine production around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern highlands, Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 38, no. (May 2011), pp. 977-984. A genetic study of varieties of grape vine supports an origin of grape domestication in the Near East.5S. Myles et al., Genetic structure and domestication history of the grape, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, published online January 18, 2011 ahead of print.

Our word wine comes from a root in Proto-Indo-European (*woino-) and there are very similar words for wine in the parents of two other language families - Semitic and Kartvelian (South Caucasian). Kartvelian languages are still spoken in Georgia. So we can be pretty sure that our word wine descends from the original word used for fermented grape juice.6Johanna Nichols, The epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread, in Roger Blench; Matthew Spriggs (eds.), Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations (1997), pp. 122-148 (126).

Mural depicting viticulture in the tomb of the scribe Menna, Thebes c. 1450 BC The Ancient Egyptians left us a fresco depicting the process of viticulture from grape-growing to wine-making. Vines were not native to Egypt. The staples of the Egyptian diet were bread and beer. Beer was brewed on an industrial scale in Egypt's first city, Hierakonpolis, and later by royal breweries.7J.R. Geller, From Prehistory to History: Beer in Egypt, in R. Friedman and B. Adams (eds.), The Followers of Horus (1992), pp.19-26; D. Samuel, Brewing and baking in P.T. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds.), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (2000), pp. 537-576. So wine would have been a luxury, perhaps initially imported. Archaeologists have found notes of vintages stored in royal palaces. Wine probably arrived in Europe before Egypt. Long before this fresco, grapes were being harvested in Greece. 6,500-year-old crushed grapes were found in Neolithic houses at Dikili Tash, which may well have been pressed in wine-making.8S.M. Valamoti et al, Grape-pressings from northern Greece: the earliest wine in the Aegean?, Antiquity, vol. 81, no. 311 (March 2007), pp. 54–61. The Greeks spread wine-drinking throughout the Mediterranean, while the Romans had a considerable trade in wine to those beer-drinking barbarians beyond their borders, and encouraged vine-cultivation within them. So now we know whom to blame.

Notes

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  1. P. E. McGovern et al., Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, vol. 101 no. 51 (December 21, 2004), pp. 17593-17598.
  2. M. Nelson, The Barbarian's Beverage: a history of beer in ancient Europe (2005)
  3. P. E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (2003); P. E. McGovern and Solomon H. Katz, The Origins and Ancient History of Wine (2000); P. E. McGovern, Uncorking the Past: The quest for wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages (2009).
  4. Hans Barnard et al., Chemical evidence for wine production around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern highlands, Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 38, no. (May 2011), pp. 977-984.
  5. S. Myles et al., Genetic structure and domestication history of the grape, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, published online January 18, 2011 ahead of print.
  6. Johanna Nichols, The epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread, in Roger Blench; Matthew Spriggs (eds.), Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations (1997), pp. 122-148 (126).
  7. J.R. Geller, From Prehistory to History: Beer in Egypt, in R. Friedman and B. Adams (eds.), The Followers of Horus (1992), pp.19-26; D. Samuel, Brewing and baking in P.T. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds.), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (2000), pp. 537-576.
  8. S.M. Valamoti et al, Grape-pressings from northern Greece: the earliest wine in the Aegean?, Antiquity, vol. 81, no. 311 (March 2007), pp. 54–61.