Thirsty Stone Age men made the first wine in 6,000BC (that’s Before Chablis)
HuMAnS started making wine up to 1,000 years earlier than had been thought.
The honour goes to the neolithic inhabitants of Georgia on the borders of Europe and Asia.
In around 6000BC these Stone Age people were mashing grapes together using varieties similar to today’s pinot noir and syrah.
Based on residues found on pottery, the discovery pushes the first evidence of wine back from the previous dates of 5000BC or 5400BC.
The claims come from a study led by the Georgian national Museum and universities of Toronto and Philadelphia. ‘We believe this is the oldest example of the domestication of a wild-growing Eurasian grapevine solely for the production of wine,’ said Dr Stephen Batiuk, a Toronto member of the team.
‘Wine was probably used, like it is today, for tasting, for religious ceremonies, and, as the images of people dancing on pottery suggest, for having parties.
‘It was a mind-altering substance, a highly-valued commod- ity, and probably used by neolithic doctors to extract ingredients from herbs for medicine.’
He said today’s 8,000 to 10,000 grape varieties were the result of grapes from the Georgian region being transplanted and crossed with wild vines elsewhere over and over again. ‘The Eurasian grapevine that now accounts for 99.9 per cent of wine made in the world today has its roots in Caucasia,’ he added.
The findings – from two sites near Tbilisi – are reported in the journal, Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences.