full title, "A first-of-its-kind discovery of 1,500 year-old grape seeds may answer the question: Why was the wine of the Negev so renowned in the Byzantine Empire-February 2015".
Posted on 02/13/2015 12:07:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
full title, "A first-of-its-kind discovery of 1,500 year-old grape seeds may answer the question: Why was the wine of the Negev so renowned in the Byzantine Empire-February 2015".
it was the feet or what was on them
I imagine it was a very dry wine. Very dry.
Why were Babylonian cooks, Macedonian stave binders, brewers of Jerusalem and Egyptian swineherds considered grave insults?
The roots of Islam? ;’)
But delicious served with filet of sole.
I think you may have something there. Those very phrases were used in a letter from a Cossack leader to an Islamic Sultan which provoked a war around the 9th century.
It will be very interesting to see what the DNA turns up about the ancestry of the vines. One would think the origin would not be European because of the aridity of the Negev.
Fascinating question!
Kind of like, Hell is Where:
The British are the chefs
The Swiss are the lovers
The French are the mechanics
The Italians make everything run on time
And the Germans are the police.
Anyway, now for the answer! (Drumroll, please)
;^)
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “Wine is God’s way of telling us he loves us and wants us to be happy.”
:-))
As an aside, when I was a youngster, you had to recite that letter word perfect to get into our club.
Of course, there are several translation versions floating around, but our favored version was published in Ripley's Believe It or Not.
I think you’re off on the date. It was written in 1891, late 19th century, not 9th century.
Oh, no, I’m off on the date, too. That’s the date of the painting. The event was in the 17th century — 1676.
I knew it couldn’t be 9th century because in the 9th century there weren’t Cossacks yet
The man writing is probably a monk, serving as the cheiftain’s scribe. I think the chief is in the black hat, directly behind him. Everyone else, of course, is roaring with laughter.
I love this picture ... something about the Cossacks’ reply to the sultan who expected them to pay tribute to him ... they were all trying to come up with better riffs on the theme of “F you, you goat ####er.”
Painted by a Russian artist.
Maybe this should be the West’s response to the whining of Moslems.
Grapes seem to have adapted to a lot of different places; I had thought that Muscadine was from the Middle East (Muscat, as in Muscat and Oman), and much to my surprise the muscadines (which include such colorfully named variations as Scuppernong) are native to the SE US, and were used to revive the fortunes of the French winemaking industry when it was hit by a disastrous fungal problem, and again after WWI when the vinyards were a little banged up. :’) Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the Muscandine grapes turned out to be genetically linked with the Negev wine grapes, proving ancient contact? Heh heh...
Don’t fret, perhaps the Cossack leader in the 9th century resulted from another accident with a contraceptive in a time machine. ;’) Thanks V, good info.
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