At first, it was early humans foraging in a river valley or forest, dense with vegetation, at some distance from their cave or other shelter, that noticed the brightly colored berries that hang in large clusters. They picked the grapes and tentatively tasted them. They enjoyed the tart, sugary taste and picked more and more. They gathered up as many of the berries as possible to carry, perhaps in an animal hide or carved wooden container and brought them back to the rest of the pack.
Now, the discovery of how the juice of the grapes ferments and becomes wine
is another story and will never be known. Maybe grapes were then left in a container, gradually being eaten over the next day or two, and the juice ferments because of the natural yeast on the skins, and became a low-alcoholic wine. Or perhaps, because of the right climatic conditions, grapes fermented on the vine by molds, which concentrated the sugar and allowed the grape to fermented by its natural yeast, only then to be eaten by a curious early human.
Neolithic Period
While the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer was able to squash grapes and make wine, it was the Neolithic period, from about 8500 to 4000 B.C., is the first time in human prehistory when the necessary preconditions came together for the momentous innovation of viniculture.
The people of Jericho are the first known to have lived mainly from the cultivation of crops.
And from them, numerous year-round villages had become established in the Near East, especially in upland regions bordering the Fertile Crescent--the foothills of the Zagros Mountains bordering the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers on the east, Transcaucasia to the north, and the upland plateaus descending from the Taurus Mountains in eastern Turkey.
Grapes were probably first cultivated in this region near the Caspian sea, where the main grape vine, Vitis vinifera, is indigenous. This is the same region where apple, cherry, pear, and many other fruits are native.
In his book Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), Patrick E. McGovern argues that the domestication of the Eurasian wine grape and winemaking could have originated on the territory of modern Georgia and spread south from there. From there, according to the best substantiated scenario, it gradually spread to adjacent regions such as Egypt and Lower Mesopotamia (ca. 3500-3000 B.C.). |
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Persia
 Archaeological investigations have shown that in fact it was in Persia that the earliest wine was made in world history. At Godin Tepe in Western Persia the earliest evidence for wine making and wine points to the fourth millennium BCE. The jars found there have yielded evidence of wine residue and it is thought that they were used for storing wine as its funnel for the wine makers Persia. [V.R. Badler, “The Archaeological Evidence for Winemaking, Distribution and Consumption at Proto-Historica Godin Tepe, Iran,” The Origins and Ancient History of Wine, ed. P.E. McGovern, S.J. Fleming, and S.H. Katz, Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1996, p. 45.]
Herodotus tells us that the Persians were very fond of wine (Old Persian batu) and that they made important decisions in the following manner. First they became drunk, since they believed that only when you are drunk do you tell the truth. Then, the next day when they were sober they reconsidered the matter.
An ancient Persian fable of king Jamsheed credits a lady of the court with the discovery of wine. This Princess, having lost favor with the King, attempted to poison herself by eating some table grapes that had spoiled in a jar. She became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she awoke, she found the stresses that had made her life intolerable had dispersed. Returning to the source of her relief, her subsequent conduct changed so remarkably that she regained the King's favor.
China
The earliest literary reference to wine in China is the account of General Zhang Qian, who traveled to the northwestern fringes of the Western Han realm in the late second century B.C. He reported that there (in the modern province of Xinjiang), astride the Silk Road, and farther along in Bactria and Sogdiana in Uzbekistan whose grapes were already legendary in the West, the most popular beverage was wine.
Ancient Egypt
In Egypt, wine played an important role in ancient ceremonial life and the Egyptian word for it, jrp (irep), predates any known word for vine. A thriving royal winemaking industry was established in the Nile Delta following the introduction of grape cultivation from the Levant to Egypt c. 3000 BC. The industry was most likely the result of trade between Egypt and Canaan during the Early Bronze Age, commencing from at least the Third Dynasty (2650 – 2575 BC), the beginning of the Old Kingdom period (2650 – 2152 BC).
Winemaking scenes on tomb walls, and the offering lists that accompanied them, included wine that was definitely produced at the deltaic vineyards. By the end of the Old Kingdom, five wines, all probably produced in the Delta, constitute a canonical set of provisions, or fixed "menu," for the afterlife. The advent of wine in Europe was the work of the Greeks who spread the art of grape-growing and winemaking in Ancient Greek and Roman times.
Wine was drunk from shallow bowls or vessels with a short stem. Sometimes a small amount of sea water was added to enhance the flavor. The syphon for tasting the wine without completely removing the plug came into use around 1500 BCE under the influence of the Syrian customs.
White Wine in Tutankhamun's Tomb
Wine in ancient Egypt was predominantly red. A recent discovery, however, has revealed the first ever evidence of white wine in ancient Egypt. Residue from five clay amphorae from Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb yielded traces of white wine.
Ancient Greece
 Much modern wine culture derives from the practices of the ancient Greeks; while the exact arrival of wine in Greek territory is unknown, it was known to both the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. Dionysus was the Greek god of wine and revelry, and wine was frequently referred to in the works of Homer and Aesop. In Homeric myths wine is usually served in "mixing bowls"; it was not traditionally drunk straight. It was thought to be referred to as "Juice of the Gods."
Many of the grapes grown in Greece are grown nowhere else, and are similar or identical to varieties grown in ancient times. In addition, the popular modern Greek wine, retsina, is believed to be a carryover from when wine jugs were lined with tree resin and imparted a distinct flavor to the wine.
Greek wine was widely known and exported throughout the Mediterranean basin, and amphorae with Greek styling and art have been found throughout the area.
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire had an immense impact on the development of viticulture and enology. Wine was an integral part of the Roman diet and wine making became a precise business.
As the Roman Empire expanded, wine production in the provinces grew to the point the provinces were competing with Roman wines. Virtually all of the major wine producing regions of Western Europe today were established by the Romans.
Wine making technology improved considerably during the time of the Roman Empire. Many grape varieties and cultivation were known. Barrels were developed for storing and shipping wine. Bottles were used for the first time. And the early developments of an appellation system formed as certain regions gained reputations for fine wine.
Roman Bottle of Wine
 Unearthed during excavation for building a house in a vineyard near the town of Speyer, Germany, it was inside one of two Roman stone sarcophaguses that were dug up. The bottle dates from approximately 325 A.D. and was found in 1867.
The greenish-yellow glass amphora has handles formed in the shape of dolphins. One of several bottles discovered, it is the only one with the contents still preserved.
The ancient liquid has much silty sediment. About two-thirds of the contents are a thicker, hazy mixture. This is most probably olive oil, which the Romans commonly used to "float" atop wine to preserve it from oxidation. Cork closures, although known to exist at the time, were quite uncommon. Their oil method of preservation was apparently effective enough to keep the wine from evaporation up to modern day.
The bottle is on permanent display, along with other wine antiquities, at the History Museum of the Pfalz, which is worth a virtual visit or an actual one, if traveling near the area of Speyer, Germany.
When the Roman Empire fell around 500 AD, Europe went into a period known as the Dark Ages. This was a period of invasions and social turmoil. The only stable social structure was the Catholic Church. Through the Church, grape growing and wine making technology was preserved during this period.
Medieval Europe
 In medieval Europe wine was consumed by the church and the noble and merchant classes, ale being the drink of the general populace. Wine was necessary for the celebration of the Catholic Mass, and so assuring a supply was crucial. The Benedictine monks became one of the largest producers of wine in France and Germany, followed closely by the Cistercians.
Other orders, such as the Carthusians, the Templars, and the Carmelites, are also notable both historically and modernly as wine producers. The Benedictines held vineyards in Champagne, (Dom Perignon was a Benedictine monk), Burgundy, and Bordeaux in France and in the Rheingau and Franconia in Germany; indeed, they were the first to plant Riesling grapes in Germany. Though they did not originate viticulture in these areas, they made it into an industry, producing enough wine to ship it all over Europe for secular use.
A housewife of the merchant class or a servant in a noble household would have served wine at every meal, and had a selection of reds and whites alike. Home recipes for meads from this period are still in existence, along with recipes for spicing and masking flavors in wines, including the simple act of adding a small amount of honey to the wine. As wines were kept in barrels, they were not extensively aged, and therefore were drunk quite young. To offset the effects of heavy consumption of alcohol, wine was frequently watered down at a ratio of four or five parts water to one of wine.
New World
Except for the occasional grape seed from an ancient village or encampment, there is as yet no archaeological evidence that Native Americans collected the wild grape for food, let alone domesticated the plant and made wine from its fruit.
Eurasian grapes came to the new world with early settlement on the east coast, but quickly died out or did poorly. This was due to poor cold hardiness, insect, and disease resistance of Vinifera types. Spanish missionaries brought Vinifera grapes to California in the 1700s and found that they grew very well there.
In North America it hybridized with species from Vitis genus native to that region. Some of these were intentional hybrids created to combat phylloxera, an insect pest which affected the European grapevine to a much greater extent than North American ones and in fact managed to devastate European wine production in a matter of years. Later North American rootstocks became widely used to graft vinifera varieties now able to withstand the presence of phylloxera.
Until the latter half of the 20th century, American wine was generally looked upon as inferior to European product; it was not until the surprising American showing at the Paris wine tasting of 1976 (nicknamed the "Judgement of Paris" in the media) that New World wine began to gain respect. Today, US wine production is dominated by California, although Washington, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan also have significant commercial wine industries based on Vinifera grapes or French-American hybrids.
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"The Epic of Gilgamesh," a poem referencing grapes and vineyards in ancient Sumeria and also commemorating the adventures of the historical King of Uruk, appears at this time. Today it is regarded as the oldest known written story on earth. We now have several Old Babylonian versions (seventeenth century B.C.E.) of the Flood story, the 'Atra-Hasis Epic,' as well as the Sumerian Flood story, thus pushing the Mesopotamian Flood tradition back at least a thousand years earlier than 'Gilgamesh'. If one accepts the Biblical parallel, this is the oldest account of wine. 
