The Origin of Wine

With Julia spending the summer and most of the fall in The Republic of Georgia, I've been thinking about various political and historical aspects of that country, and one of the things that is claimed to be true is that wine was first invented there.

Recently, someone asked me (always ask the archaeologist esoteric stuff like this) where wine was first invented. And, recently, we scored some Concord Grapes, which are native to North America (presumably thanks to some bird a long time ago) as opposed to most grapes, and which provide the roots for most (nearly all?) wine grape stock. And, a paper on the genetics of wine came out recently and has been staring at me for a few weeks now. All these things together made me want to update my current knowledge of the origin of wine.

The short and snarky answer to the question of the origin of wine is that we don't know. Grapes can ferment on the vine, so if that's wine, then it does not have a cultural origin, but is rather a part of nature, getting birds and small mammals drunk for a very very long time. But that is not what we really mean when we say "wine." What we mean is something you make from grapes, it contains alcohol, and is stored in some sort of vessel for consumption later. Or sooner. By people, not birds.

Of course, everyone must check Wikipedea these days for everything. I typically check what Wikipedea is saying about what I'm writing on because a) it may have something interesting, b) it may have something annoying and c) if I don't check some wise guy who reads my blog will and I'll get any discrepancies between Teh Wiki and Teh Blawg pointed out to me. Frankly, these days Wikipedia is usually pretty good on a wide range of topics, but for the history of wine, I was struck with something annoying:

The history of wine spans thousands of years and is closely intertwined with the history of agriculture, cuisine, civilization and humanity itself.*

Sorry folks, but wine emerges in human history half way through the history of agriculture and only in a limited range of where humanity has lived and has nothing to do with the vast majority of traditional cuisines. No matter how enamored your typical occidento-normative wikicontributoid is with modern haute culture, wine != humanity. In fact, that's a pretty terrible thing to say, implying that all those people around the world with a history (or a present) unconnected to wine may also be somehow unconnected to humanity. I assume that will be fixed.

It is said in many places, including in Wikipedia, that there is direct evidence of wine manufacture in Georgia about 8,000 years ago but as far as I know, that evidence is either equivocal or not well dated. Patrick McGovern of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania has made the case*, based on domesticated grape pips and residue found in pottery, that Georgian wine dates to between 9 and 8 thousand years ago, but I've yet to locate a peer reviewed paper that firmly makes this case. But it is believable.

Wine residue was found on vessel fragments from Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran (Northern Zagros Mountains) dating to about 7,000 years ago.* There is chemical evidence for wine about 6,000 years ago in Armenia.* (Armenia is right next to Georgia.) And, genetic studies suggest that domestic grapes come mainly from the "middle east" (which is a vague term) and inter-pollinated with local European wild grapes after domestication.

The study I mentioned above was published in PNAS and happens to be OpenAccess, so you can read it yourself. Here's a scaled down version of the abstract from that paper.

... we characterize genome-wide patterns of genetic variation in over 1,000 samples of the domesticated grape, Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera, and its wild relative, V. vinifera subsp. sylvestris .... We find support for a Near East origin of vinifera and present evidence of introgression from local sylvestris as the grape moved into Europe. High levels of genetic diversity and rapid linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay have been maintained in vinifera, which is consistent with a weak domestication bottleneck followed by thousands of years of widespread vegetative propagation. The considerable genetic diversity within vinifera, however, is contained within a complex network of close pedigree relationships that has been generated by crosses among elite cultivars. We show that first-degree relationships are rare between wine and table grapes and among grapes from geographically distant regions. Our results suggest that although substantial genetic diversity has been maintained in the grape subsequent to domestication, there has been a limited exploration of this diversity. We propose that the adoption of vegetative propagation was a double-edged sword: Although it provided a benefit by ensuring true breeding cultivars, it also discouraged the generation of unique cultivars through crosses. The grape currently faces severe pathogen pressures, and the long-term sustainability of the grape and wine industries will rely on the exploitation of the grape's tremendous natural genetic diversity.

The article doesn't really provide a better way of dating the origin of wine or placing it on the map, but the genetic results are consistent with prevailing thinking on a "middle eastern" (which here would include Georgia) origin and a Neolithic but not beginning of the neolithic date.

So wine was probably made from grapes first cultivated in the southern Caucasus. From there the technology or the idea spread into the Anatolian region and nearby areas. So, between around 8,000 years ago (or somewhat less?) and 6,000 years ago, wine became established in places where people were settled, could grow the fruit, and had the interest. Like beer, I would guess that wine served the purpose of preserving those calories grown on early farms. (Beer was probably first made in the near east as a way to store barley.) But of course it would also get everybody drunk. So, you harvest your food, make the wine, eat all the fresh stuff and sometime in the middle of winter, you are consuming more and more wine and less and less bread. By January or February everyone is running around drunk and by planting season you need a sort of alarm clock to wake up and start working the farm again. Thus, one would have to invent astronomy to make calendars and stone-henge like structures to tell you when to get back to work. Yes, yes, I know this is all wild speculation but it all makes so much sense. I wonder if you could tell the difference between the effects of beer on society in areas where barley was grown vs. the effects of wine on society in areas where grapes were grown. One of the major downsides of Islam is, of course, wiping out the beer tradition in the Levant and surrounding areas, so we may never know!

It is also interesting that wine arrives so late in Western Europe. Various estimates put the arrival of wine in that region less than 3,000 years ago.

Finally, getting back to Georgia, we have this: As I've discussed elsewhere, Feasting is a phenomenon that either emerged early in human prehistory and stuck, or was reinvented again and again by various groups, such that it is widespread and seems to have common cultural trappings in many places it is found. The Georgians have a traditional feast, and at this feast there are toasts. And with each toast, I'm told, one must drain one's glass, and traditionally that glass is filled with wine. Georgian wine is not strong, so this works. (And by the way, Georgian wine is good, at least the stuff I've had, so do give it a try.)

The problem is the Russians. The Russians have given the Georgians a long list of problems ever since Peter the Great and Catherine decided it was an important region to invade and stuff (and invading Georgia has become a tradition in Russia, apparently). And one of the problems the Russians gave to Georgia is, of course, Vodka. It is my understanding that during Georgian feasts, the glasses are the same as they always were .... large wine glasses ... and they are always filled to the brim and they are always emptied at every toast during the feast. But vodka has replaced wine. That's a problem.

So, as they say in Georgia: "მივესალმო"

_______________________

Myles, Sean, Boyko, Adam, Owens, Christopher, Brown, Patrick, Grassi, Fabrizio, Aradhya, Mallikarjuna, Prins, Bernard, Reynolds,Andy, Chia, Jer-Ming, Ware, Doreen, Bustamante, Carlos, & Buckler, Edward (2011). Genetic structure and domestication history of the grape PNAS

McGovern PE (2003) Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture
(Princeton Univ Press, Princeton).