How old is winemaking and where did it start?
As our panel prepares to assess the current state of Israeli wine, our thoughts turn to wine in the ancient world and the origins of wine and winemaking.
It's pretty well established that the earliest evidence of wine to date lies in wine stains found in Persian amphorae dating back to the 4th or 5th millennium B.C.E. The earliest physical evidence of wine grapes and presses comes from Georgia and the regions between the Black and Caspian Seas.
It's interesting to note that the first Biblical reference to wine and winemaking involves the story of Noah of flood fame. He is said to be the first winemaker, having planted a vineyard not far from Mt. Ararat, located in the very region where our earliest physical evidence was found.
Wine, unlike beer, is a natural product of nature. It can be made in a day from wild grapes and it's likely that wherever ancient humans came in contact with a suitable supply of wild grapes, wine resulted.
It's also interesting to note that all the ancient texts seem to show that old wine was preferred to young. This is probably due to the coarse and tannic nature of the wines of that region. With the passage of time these wines became increasingly approachable, provided that they didn't spoil. It appears that the preferred method of storing wine was in sealed pottery jars called amphorae. The amphorae of classical Greece were beautifully decorated and are often seen in museums around the world. It was the Greeks who introduced wine grapes to Italy and France around 600 B.C.E.
With the Muslim dominance of the entire Middle East, winemaking declined. But with the return of the Jews to Israel in 1947, vineyards were planted again in the region once known for wine production. See our article on the state of current Israeli wine for an update.
