Where was wine first made, and how do we know?

The oldest evidence we have points to the South Caucasus. The earliest known traces of wine were found near Tbilisi, in today's Georgia, and are dated to about 6000 BCE. Notice the careful wording: evidence, and dated. Wine is not like a tool or a statue that announces itself, so archaeologists have to read it from what it left behind, and the dates are their best estimates.

Another famous find comes from Hajji Firuz Tepe, a village in the Zagros Mountains of north-western Iran. There, excavators found six jars, 9 litres each, set into the floor of a mudbrick building that was inhabited between about 5400 and 5000 BC. Inside the jars were yellowish deposits, and chemical analysis found residue of tartaric acid. That clue matters because grapes are one of the few natural sources of this acid, and it is the most abundant acid in wine. The jars also held resin from the terebinth tree, which grew wild nearby and may have been used as a preservative, much as it is in Greek retsina today.

So is that proof? Honestly, no. The residue is strong evidence, but it is not definitive proof of winemaking. Archaeologists stay cautious, and that caution is part of the story.

Later sites show wine was already a serious craft. In the Areni-1 cave in Armenia, dated to about 4100 BC, researchers found a wine press, fermentation vats, jars and cups, in effect a whole winery. The archaeologist Patrick McGovern said that winemaking being so well developed by 4000 BC suggests the technology probably goes back much earlier.

The Persians told their own tale of the discovery. In the legend, a woman from King Jamshid's household went to a jar marked "poison", which held spoiled grapes, and found that drinking it lifted her spirits. It is a charming story, and a legend, not evidence.