Posted on 05/17/2005 1:17:27 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Cyprus was the first Mediterranean country to make wine, an Italian archaeologist has claimed.
Maria-Rosaria Belgiorno said she uncovered evidence, during an archaeological dig near the southern coastal town of Limassol, that Cypriots produced wine up to 6,000 years ago, AFP reports.
'At Pyrgos we found two jugs used for wine and the seeds of the grapes. And at Erimi, of the 18 pots we looked at, 12 were used for wine between 3,500BC and 3,000BC,' Belgiorno was quoted as saying in the Cyprus Weekly newspaper.
It was previously believed that the Mediterranean wine-making tradition originated in what is now Turkey and Syria, or with worshippers of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus.
The world's first wine is thought to have been made from rice in China around 9,000 years ago, followed by a grape-based alcohol not entirely dissimilar to modern day claret in what is today's Iran 7,000 years ago.
Interesting. The incense burned in the Temple in Jerusalem was made of a mix that included Cypriot wine. I always wondered why the description was so specific (i.e., that it had to be Cypriot, as opposed to, say, Greek, wine). If wine itself originated in Cyprus (albeit long before the Temple was built), maybe this provides part of the answer.
Wine is older than that.. Much Older..
My bet, eventually we will find the first wines were made as much as 20, 30 thousand years ago.. maybe even earlier than that..
I would be willing to venture that the knowledge that fermented grapes will get you drunk is one of the oldest bits of knowledge in the human experience..
I wonder what the French are going to think now. Will they "wine" about it???
Hence the origin of the expression: "drunk as a Cypriot Sailor".
There was a feature on one of the nature channels a while back showing that apes in the jungle make wine. They toss broken coconut shells around under trees with wild grape vines and come back later to drink the juice just before thay start doing backflips, mating, & falling from the vines thay're swinging from. You can bet that humans figured out the source of all this primate fun quite a bit earlier than 6,000 years ago. Vinyards & wineries were at the very origin of civilazation and probably the source motivation for commerce, pottery, agriculture, and nearly everything else associated with early civilazation.
I think he was the smartest person I have ever met. Also real short, about 5'4" tall.
Probably.
Heck, even monkeys know that rotting grapes will get them drunk.
Probably discovered serendipitously and perfected after that. Easy to imagine an ancient farmer putting grapes or grape juice in a container for storage and then them accidentally fermenting to produce wine.
Once the farmer figured out the recipe, then the rest was wine history.
Wine is probably as old as grapes and yeast and humans.
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Well I didn't know that. Then again I was probably too drunk to find out.
Doesn't matter if they were first, just if it was potent.
According to this http://www.wineintro.com/events/yr1999/histwine.html it is older than that:
"Wine has been around for at least 7,000 years - unlike beer and other alcohols, wine just happens all by itself and needs no other steps. If a primitive people gathered grapes and let them sit in a jar, wine would have resulted. Even as far back as 5,400 BC, there is evidence that Northern Iranian people aged wine on purpose."
But I guess that it is much older, give another 1-2,000 years (but probably not more) as a product.
thanks for another interesting thread!
The world's earliest known ancient wine jar (more than 7000 years old, ca. 5400-5000 B.C.) and a similarly dated sherd from another reconstructed wine jar are now on display
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/NearEast/wine.shtml
Easy to follow sequence
A rotten tree with grape vines falls - The grapes are easier to get to and pick. Prune the vine - the grapes grow larger. Chop the tree down and prune the vine and use the tree branches to trellis the vines. Transplant cuttings from the vines - you've got a vineyard. Select best producing vines for transplanting - you've got primo. Other folks want your wine - make them pay in trinkets and you've got trade. Make pottery to store and transport the wine and you've got advanced culture. Build a walled city and a grain fed army to protect your vineyard and you've got civilization!
"At Pyrgos we found two jugs"
Wow! Wonder how much they go for? I understand 3995 BC was a very year.
GOOD year.
Alcohol made from rice = Sake
Alcohol made from Honey = Mead
Neither of those are wines.
BTW, have you ever had mead?
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