Living out our past through wine...
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Fermented beverages have been preferred over water throughout the ages: they are safer, provide psychotropic effects, and are more nutritious. Some have even said alcohol was the primary agent for the development of Western civilization, since more healthy individuals (even if inebriated much of the time) lived longer and had greater reproductive success. When humans became "civilized," fermented beverages were right at the top of the list for other reasons as well: conspicuous display (the earliest Neolithic wine, which might be dubbed "Chateau Hajji Firuz," was like showing off a bottle of Pétrus today); a social lubricant (early cities were even more congested than those of today); economy (the grapevine and wine tend to take over cultures, whether Greece, Italy, Spain, or California); trade and cross-cultural interactions (special wine-drinking ceremonies and drinking vessels set the stage for the broader exchange of ideas and technologies between cultures); and religion (wine is right at the center of Christianity and Judaism; Islam also had its "Bacchic" poets like Omar Khayyam).
Whatever the reason, we continue to live out our past civilization by drinking wine made from a plant that has its origins in the ancient Near East. Your next bottle may not be a 7000 year old vintage from Hajji Firuz, but the grape remains ever popular—cloned over and over again from those ancient beginnings.
Neolithic
Period
“Chateau
Hajji Firuz”
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If winemaking is best understood as an intentional human activity rather than a seasonal happenstance, then the Neolithic period (8500-4000 B.C.) is the first time in human prehistory when the necessary preconditions for this momentous innovation came together.
Most importantly, Neolithic communities of the ancient Near East and Egypt were permanent, year-round settlements made possible by domesticated plants and animals.
 Overview of two Neolithic houses at Hajji Firuz Tepe, during excavation. |
Crafts important in food preparation, storage, and serving advanced in tandem with the new cuisine. Of special significance is the appearance of pottery vessels around 6000 B.C. The plasticity of clay made it an ideal material for forming shapes such as narrow-mouthed vats and storage jars for producing and keeping wine.
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A major step forward in our understanding of Neolithic winemaking came from the analysis of a yellowish residue inside a jar (see photo at top of page) excavated by Mary M. Voigt at the site of Hajji Firuz Tepe in the northern Zagros Mountains of Iran. The jar, with a volume of about 9 liters (2.5 gallons) was found together with five similar jars embedded in the earthen floor along one wall of a "kitchen" of a Neolithic mudbrick building, dated to ca. 5400-5000 B.C. The structure, consisting of a large living room that may have doubled as a bedroom, the "kitchen," and two storage rooms, might have accommodated an extended family. That the room in which the jars were found functioned as a kitchen was supported by the finding of numerous pottery vessels, which were probably used to prepare and cook foods, together with a fireplace.
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The Grapevine |
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Winemaking is very much constrained by the grapevine itself, even given the necessary containers and the means of preservation. The wild vine is dioecious (meaning it has unisexual flowers on separate plants that must be pollinated by insects). Only the female plant produces fruit. The wild grapevine grows today through the temperate Mediterranean basin, as well as in parts of western and central Asia. Sometime during the Neolithic Period, the wild Eurasian grapevine was eventually developed as our domesticated type. The domestic vine's advantages over the wild type can be traced to its hermaphrodism (bisexual flowers occur together in the same plant, enabling self-pollination by the wind and fruit production by every flower). The genetic "history" encoded in the DNA of modern wild and domesticated grapes, together with that of any available samples, suggests an alternative means to track the development of viniculture in the Old World. Using recombinant DNA techniques, it might be possible to delimit a specific region of the world and the approximate time period when the wild grape was domesticated. A "Noah" hypothesis would seek the progenitor(s) of modern domesticated grape varieties and their sequence of development and transplantation. (Noah, the biblical patriarch and "first vintner," is said to have planted a vineyard on Mount Ararat after the flood, later becoming drunk after he drank the fermented beverage.) |
The Rich History Of Italian Wine
The history of Italian wine begins with the first wines that originated in the Middle East. The Old Testament has many references to wine. Wine was used by the early Minoan, Greek, and Etruscan civilizations, which brings us to the roots of Italian wine history.
Italy is one of the oldest wine regions in the world, and the history of Italian wine has roots that are even older. When we tell the history of Italian wine, we must speak of people who have been consuming and relishing wine for thousands of years. Its ancient origins trace to the Mesopotamians, sometime between 4000 and 3000 B.C., who lived near present-day Iran. Many left their marks on the Mediterranean shores. The further study of Italian wine history tells us the Spaniards brought vines into Sardinia, Sicily and other places centuries after the Arabs and Phoenicians planted what many believe to be the first "foreign" vines in Italy, beginning the history of Italian wine.The Etruscans (English name for the people of ancient Italy and Corsica whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci) from Asia Minor also produced wines. The history of Italian wine was then passed to the Romans who recognized the potential of the slopes that gave them Falernum (renowned wine produced in ancient Rome, often mentioned in Roman literature but has since disappeared), Caecubum (came from a small territory, ager Caecubus, at Amyclae in coastal Latium), Mamertinum and other heady wines eulogized by poets from Horace (65 B.C. - 8 B.C.) to Virgil (70 B.C - 19 B.C). The Mycenaean Greeks settled in Sicily and southern Italy in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., driven by unsettled conditions at home, and found the climate so beneficial to growing grape vines that the ancient Greeks were prompted to nickname their colonies "Oenotria" ("oinos" meaning wine in Greek), the land of wine.
Romans loved their wine, drinking it with every meal. Roman red and white wines contained more alcohol and were generally more acidic, sturdy and powerful than modern fine wines. It was customary to mix wine, which may otherwise have been unpalatable, with a good proportion of water. They preferred sweet wine, but interestingly their best, most prized wine was white coming from the area that they thought was the best wine-growing region, the Falernian region near Naples. They mixed additives such as honey with this wine making an aperitif called mulsum. Herbs and spices were also often added. Wine and salt water was known to be mixed. Chalk was mixed with wine as well to reduce acidity.
When we study the history of Italian wine, we note the population explosion in Rome from 300 B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era, when demand for wine increased greatly. The Romans made large contributions to the ancient art of viniculture; they are credited for using props and trellises. Italian wine history recognizes the Romans as the first to understand that aged wines taste better and that certain wines should be aged between 10 and 25 years. They improved the Greek presses used for extracting juice, and classified which grapes grew best in which climate, increasing yields. The study of Italian wine history teaches that the Romans were the first to store wine in wooden barrels, understand that wines kept in tightly closed containers improved with age, and how to utilize the cork
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Italy is the largest producer of wine in the world with more vineyards than any other place, including France. Grapes are grown in almost every part of Italy, with more than 1 million vineyards under cultivation. Italian wine history takes us on a journey of over 2,000 years. Today, Italian wines tend to be higher in acid, dry and can be light bodied as in a simple Chianti, medium bodied as in a Montepulcino, or full bodied as in an
