8,000 years of wine

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1. c. 11,000 years ago

   The vine is domesticated

   A genomic study of 3,525 cultivated and wild grapevines concludes that domestication happened concurrently about 11,000 years ago in Western Asia and the Caucasus, giving rise to both table and wine grapes.¹ The Western Asian domesticates then travelled into Europe with early farmers and crossed with local wild vines.¹

2. later 3.1 thousand years

   c. 6000–5800 BCE

   Earliest grape wine: Neolithic Georgia

   Residues absorbed into jars from Shulaveris Gora and Gadachrili Gora, two villages about 50 km south of Tbilisi, give the earliest biomolecular evidence of grape wine in the Near East, at c. 6000–5800 BCE.² The very large jars probably served at once for fermentation, ageing and serving.²

   Alcoholic fermentation
3. later 700 years

   c. 5400–5000 BCE

   Resinated wine at Hajji Firuz Tepe

   In a Neolithic house at Hajji Firuz Tepe in the northwestern Zagros Mountains of Iran, dated c. 5400–5000 BCE, six jars stood embedded in the floor of a kitchen.² Two of them were analysed and showed tartaric acid, the grape marker, together with a tree resin.² The find was first published in Nature in 1996 as "Neolithic resinated wine".³

4. later 1.2 thousand years

   c. 4000 BCE

   A cave winery at Areni, Armenia

   Numerous jars set into the ground were found inside caves at Areni in the mountains of Armenia, with desiccated grapevine wood dated to c. 4000 BCE, grape pips, tartaric acid and the red pigment malvidin.² The excavators published it as chemical evidence for wine production around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern highlands.⁴

5. later 850 years

   c. 3150 BCE

   Wine in the tomb of Scorpion I, Egypt

   Tomb U-j at Abydos, radiocarbon-dated to c. 3150 BCE, belonged to Scorpion I of Dynasty 0 and held some 700 jars of foreign type.⁵ Chemical analyses of jars from this time onward show that grape wine was used to dispense herbs and tree resins.⁵

6. Roman era

   Roman vines in French soil

   Genome-wide sequencing of 28 archaeological grape seeds from the Iron Age, the Roman era and the medieval period in France found them closely related to western European cultivars used for winemaking today.⁶ Seeds with identical genetic signatures turned up at different Roman sites.⁶

7. From the High Middle Ages

   Monks shape the Burgundy climats

   UNESCO describes the Burgundy vineyard plots, the climats, as shaped since the High Middle Ages under the impetus of Benedictine and Cistercian monastic orders, with two varieties, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.⁷ The Climats were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2015.⁷

   Côte de NuitsPinot NoirChardonnay

8. c. 1100 CE

   A 900-year-old clone: Savagnin

   A grape seed dated to about 1100 CE proved a genetic match to Savagnin Blanc, evidence of 900 years of uninterrupted vegetative propagation of one variety.⁶

9. From the early 17th century

   Champagne learns to sparkle

   On the Champagne hillsides, the method of making sparkling wine by a secondary fermentation in the bottle was developed from the early 17th century up to its early industrialisation in the 19th century.⁸ UNESCO traces this tradition's roots to Hautvillers and inscribed the Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars in 2015.⁸

   ChampagneTraditional method

10. 1737

    Tokaj becomes a closed wine region

    A decree of Emperor Charles VI (Charles III, King of Hungary) established Tokaj as a closed wine region in 1737, a legal delimitation that UNESCO calls among the first in the world.⁹

    Tokaj
11. later 19 years

    1756

    Port's quality is regulated

    In the Alto Douro, port has been a wine of a quality defined and regulated since 1756.¹⁰ The terraced region was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2001.¹⁰

    Douro
12. later 99 years

    18 April 1855

    The Bordeaux 1855 classification

    For the Universal Exhibition in Paris, at the request of Napoleon III, the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce entrusted a ranking of Gironde wines to the brokers' syndicate, and it was published on 18 April 1855.¹¹ Today its red wines comprise 5 Firsts, 14 Seconds, 14 Thirds, 10 Fourths and 18 Fifths.¹¹

    Bordeaux
13. later 8 years

    1863

    Phylloxera reaches France

    Phylloxera, an aphid-like insect brought to Europe from North America with imported plant material, caused the first recorded vine decay in France in 1863, at Pujaut in the Gard.¹² Within 20 years, 1 million hectares had been destroyed and another 0.6 million infected.¹²

14. later 5 years

    15 July 1868

    The culprit is identified

    On 15 July 1868, the grower Gaston Bazille, the botanist J. E. Planchon and the horticulturist F. Sahut were the first to identify phylloxera insects feeding on the roots of dying vines, at Château de Lagoy in the Bouches-du-Rhône.¹²

15. later 16 years

    1881–1887

    Grafting onto American rootstocks

    In Languedoc, growers moved from planting American vines directly (1877–1881) to using the American species riparia and rupestris as rootstocks (1881–1887), then berlandieri for limestone soils after 1887.¹³ Grafting European vines onto rootstocks of American Vitis background became the lasting answer to phylloxera.¹²

    Limestone
16. later 51 years

    30 July 1935

    France creates the AOC system

    A decree-law of 30 July 1935 created the national committee for appellations of origin that became INAO in 1947, and with it the appellations d'origine contrôlées.^14,15 The decree-law protected not only a wine's name but also its distinctive features and its link with a specific terroir.¹⁴

17. later 1 year

    15 May 1936

    The first AOCs

    The first appellations d'origine contrôlées were recognised on 15 May 1936: Arbois, Cassis, Cognac, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Monbazillac and Tavel.¹⁴ The Burgundy appellations were also established in 1936.⁷

    Côte de Nuits
18. later 40 years

    24 May 1976

    The Judgment of Paris

    On 24 May 1976 the British wine merchant Steven Spurrier put unlabelled French and Californian wines before nine French experts, and a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon came out on top.¹⁶ Bottles of both wines are now in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.¹⁶

    Napa ValleyChardonnayCabernet Sauvignon
19. later 21 years

    1997

    DNA reveals Cabernet Sauvignon's parents

    Microsatellite DNA analysis showed that Cabernet Sauvignon is the progeny of two other Bordeaux varieties, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.¹⁷ The authors called the genetic contribution of Sauvignon Blanc a surprise.¹⁷

    Cabernet SauvignonCabernet FrancSauvignon BlancBordeaux
20. later 2 years

    1999

    Chardonnay's family: Pinot × Gouais blanc

    After analysing more than 300 cultivars, researchers found that sixteen wine grapes long grown in northeastern France, including Chardonnay, Gamay, Aligoté and Melon, are the progeny of a single pair of parents, Pinot and Gouais blanc.¹⁸ Both parents were widespread in that region in the Middle Ages.¹⁸

    ChardonnayPinot NoirGamay
21. later 8 years

    2007

    The grapevine genome is sequenced

    A high-quality draft of the grapevine genome, obtained from a highly homozygous genotype, was the first genome sequenced for a fruit crop and only the fourth for any flowering plant.¹⁹ It revealed the contribution of three ancestral genomes to the grapevine's haploid content.¹⁹

22. later 6 years

    2013

    Qvevri winemaking joins UNESCO's list

    The ancient Georgian method of making wine in qvevri was inscribed in 2013 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.²⁰ The qvevri is an egg-shaped earthenware vessel, sealed and buried in the ground so the wine can ferment for five to six months.²⁰

    Kakheti