Most people on earth drink wine, but few of us are familiar with the history of wine’s origins. And it goes back centuries. We can only speculate when man began to cultivate grapes and where the first wine was made. But what is certain is that wine was not made in all areas where wild grapes grew.
The very first evidence of the existence of wine was found in Georgia. There they found fragments of clay jugs dated to about 6 thousand years BC and decorated with images of grape bunches. Between the Tigris and the Euphrates (Mesopotamia), on the Nile, in the southern Caucasus and later in Palestine, we also found evidence that man was able to make wine early in history.
In 1968, an American archeological expedition to Iran found a vessel made between 5,400 and 5,000 years BC. At the bottom of it they found solidified remnants of wine – the oldest wine in the world! Wine was produced when agriculture was just beginning to emerge. Thus, the development of civilization and winemaking took place at the same time.
The real masters of winemaking were the ancient Egyptians, as evidenced by the numerous paintings found in the tombs. They depict scenes of caring for grapes, harvesting and making wine. The vessels have labels on them, indicating the owner and the year of harvest, exactly as they do today on modern labels!
Mention of wine is found in a poem that is one of the oldest in world literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh dates from about 1800 B.C. The poem describes how the man, who ate only plant food and drank nothing, was offered a taste of wine. According to the author, the man afterwards felt bliss and his heart was “filled with joy.”
The Bible mentions wine at least 521 times!
Speaking of the history of winemaking, it is interesting to note that the word “symposium”, which nowadays means a serious scientific forum, originally meant “drunkenness”, “party” or simply “drinking”.
Wine even played a role in politics. The British love of port contributed to Portugal being an ally of England for centuries.
These days, viticulture and winemaking are widespread around the globe. In recent years, winegrowing has been developing particularly rapidly in the southern hemisphere: Australia and the Republic of South Africa. In spite of the fact that the area of vineyards in the world tends to fall, the annual wine production is steady at the figure of 71 million hectoliters. At the same time the share of high quality wine is constantly increasing, as well as wine consumption in the countries, which previously lagged behind on this indicator.