Babylonia, Sumer, et. alia
The original vines of prehistory were vitis sylvestris and vitis vinifera. The ancient peoples in the Caucasus must have had an impact on these vines, because we can see how they have “evolved” over millennia. These early people selected the vines for their ability to grow a large crop of grapes. We still see the effects of this today. And if you find a wild grapevine grown from seed, you will note that it rarely has much fruit. Grapevines are propagated by planting cuttings---and that means that every grape variety on Earth began as a single vine which was then propagated by man. Naturally occurring grapes from seeds are not suitable for wine--or for eating.
At the time, most grapes were either male or female, and required both sexes to produce fruit. Only a few variant vines were monoecious, or self-pollinating. If early man selected the vines that were most productive, then it is easy to see how the male plants might have been eliminated—they would have had no grapes. And within a generation, the females would then be barren as well. Only the monoecious vines would have continued to produced a crop. This was a key element to the "domestication" of the grapevine. Virtually all commercial vines now share this characteristic.
Today there is a wine made in Hungary from dioecious grapes. Sarfeher wine is made from vines that carry only one sex per plant. The female plant yields big clusters of elongated berries. The male plants have no grapes on them, only flowers with billions of grains of pollen that cover a large number of female counterparts. Sarfeher is very difficult to grow, and its wine is of limited interest to the market. The last remaining vinyard is about 10 acres, on the slopes of Mount Somlo in Hungary. It produces about 2,000 bottles of wine per year.
“Dionysus, is often represented as a hermaphrodite—often with the figure of a woman and the beard of a man.”
Interestingly enough, the god of wine, Dionysus, is often represented as a hermaphrodite—often with the figure of a woman and the beard of a man. Perhaps this is a subtle recognition among the ancients of the botanical “bi-sexuality” of the vine.
How important was the vine to ancient man? Imagine stone-age man, walking by a vine that was clearly dead in the winter. The vine has no leaves, no green growth, and the ends of the canes are hard, dry, and brittle. To all eyes, it is dead. And yet in the spring it quite literally comes back to life, full of lush green growth—the vine is completely reborn. And then in the autumn it produces grapes—a unique kind of fruit—perfect handfuls of delicious ripe fruit, full of juice and sugar, unlike anything else in the world. It is the perfect raw material for wine. And it is easy to see how the grapevine became the perfect symbol of the harvest, life and re-birth.
Even better, when the grapes fermented, the wine made men feel like gods. No wonder that wine was revered throughout the ancient world.
Were the original wines made by storing grapes, grapes that later fermented? Women must have played a critical role in the process, as the gatherers vs. the hunters. They must have first found the best vines and perhaps even protected them from other plants. Did they return, year after year, to the same spot, to reap the same harvest? Did they carefully clear away the other plants to give room for the vine to grow? Was it these same women who gradually eliminated all but the monoecious vines?
Wine is Celebration
Even today, the harvest is an obvious season of celebration—both social and religious. But in a time of hand-to-mouth existence, it would have been the only season of plenty. At least for a few weeks during this season, people grew fat and happy. As an example of this in more recent times, the early American colonists fighting for existence in the New World were disturbed by the seasonal nature of their diet and their weight. They grew thin all year, then suddenly fattened up during the riches of the harvest. They did not have the stores of food that would have helped tide them over the winter. Ancient peoples would have experienced these same seasonal fluctuations in diet and food availability.
The wild grape harvesting seems to have happened by 6,000 BC, in Greece, and probably earlier in the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian Seas--modern day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey . Archaeologists have found grape seeds in the trash bins of early man in these areas. Thus both viticulture and oenology began before history itself, which began around 3,500 BC. That's when we first started writing things down. And much of what we wrote was a record of what we grew and how much of it we had.
Before history. those early peoples lived hand to mouth, with few sources of food: game, grains, apples, figs and grapes. For protein they had what they could hunt, plus domesticated sheep and goats. It would have been a very limited diet—one in which seasonal fruits and crops had a huge impact, not only on flavor but also on nutrition. It is easy to imagine how each crop would have been treasured for what it brought to the table and to the human body.
Remember that wine is more complicated to produce and more seasonal than beer—the grain for beer will last a long time if stored properly—wine has a definite moment of harvest, a time of fermentation. That moment coincided with the riches of the harvest of other crops as well. So wine was not only a rare pleasure, it was a symbol of the season of plenty—a way to celebrate, to prolong that season, and a way to get intoxicated. It was powerful stuff, and it captured the sense that at least, for a few weeks, all was well with the world. It was truly a beverage of celebration.
Where did it all start?
The cultivation of wheat and barley began in the Near East soon after 6000 BC, with the addition of lentils, peas, and flax for oilseed; fruit and nuts were gathered in the middle and late Stone Ages, including wild grapes and olives. The earliest farmers in Southeastern Europe were tied to permanent settlements by the need to plant, attend and harvest crops. The nomadic animal herders of the same time did not face the same problem. The goal of agriculture was to provide a storable surplus of large seeds that would provide essential foods throughout the year. Diversification of crops helped to guard against failures, and added pleasurable variety.
Wild grapes and olives grew all around the coasts of the Mediterranean. We have records of cultivation beginning before 4,000 BC in the Caucasus, before 3000 BC in Egypt and Syria, and in Greece around 2500 BC. Although processing reduces the food value of grapes and olives, it allows them to be converted into wine and oil for long-term storage. Evidence of grape skins, stalks and pips from early Minoan Crete suggest wine-making, and olive presses were also known there before the time of King Minos.
And how was it served?
How was this early wine served? In the Caucasus, drinking vessels were without stems or bottoms—you had better drink up! Wine was poured for one diner into one cup. Once that was consumed, the server then went to the next diner with both the wine and the cup.
Drinking horns, or rhytons, were made out of horn or pottery, and had a hole at the tip of the horn. The wine was poured in the top, and you drank by moving your thumb off the hole in the bottom and letting the wine shoot into your mouth.
This is typical of most early dinners—and a practice that continued in some forms until the Middle Ages. It made wine service a special element to the dinner—probably a focal point of the service. Each diner watched others enjoy the wine and waited his or her turn for the fruit of the gods.
This is somewhat similar to the Polynesia kava ceremony, where each member of the audience is called up, by name, to receive the kava from the chief. For a brief moment, that individual is the center of attention for the entire gathering. It is a proud moment, and a moment that underscores a sense of belonging to the group. Early wine service had this same effect.
Nothing came easy in those early days. How did the Sumerians get their wine? There was an ancient trade route down the Euphrates to Sumer from the Caucasus. The boats were leather-covered frameworks, much like the coracles of Ireland today. They floated down the river full of hollowed out palm trunks that carried the wine like primitive barrels. And since the return route included a steep climb back up-river, each boat carried a donkey to tote the boat back up the Euphrates. One can only imagine the process of loading a donkey into a coracle and then navigating down river with it on board, through both deep pools and rapids. This trade was noted in the first cuneiform tablets, around 3,500 BC.
The epic of Gilgamesh, the great religious text of the Sumerians, includes a tale of his attempt to drink of the eternal vine, because that will give him the gift of immortality and allow him to bring others back to life. He is unsuccessful, and thereby hangs the rest of the tale. But as long ago as that, in the first written epic, the idea persists that wine is the drink of the gods.
The drink of the gods
It is possible that in Ur only the priestly class drank wine, or at least enjoyed the very best wine. Even today, someone in Spain who has eaten and drunk well is said to have dined like a priest. But there are also texts which indicate that the brothels and bars were one and the same—a place where anyone could go to forget your troubles, one way or the other. It appears that these bars were owned by women. At least one cuneiform text that makes it clear that mismanagement of a brothel/bar was punishable by death. "The woman shall be thrown into the river and drowned." I have to think that this would be a great way to improve service.
The practice of the cultivation of grapes came from the mountains, as did the Sumerians. When the Sumerians settled the great plains of what is now Iraq, they built huge temples—towering mountains of brick. Were these ziggurats of Babylon artificial mountains? Perhaps there were merely an attempt to create the hillside home of the grapes that were the drink of the gods. It is possible that the hanging gardens of Babylon may have had grapes growing on them—and may even have been created for those grapes, symbolically or practically.
Stop and think for a moment. What was life like 5,000 years ago? What were the jobs or occupations? What are the jobs in any small town? If a town has forty people, and virtually no trade, what do they do? When does a village become a town? Who can worry about wine, or other non-essential, in such a community? Ah, but when the grapes are ripe, one can easily imagine the community coming together, working together to create the magical juice.
In ancient times, wine was made by crushing grapes in large ditches, or hollow logs. It was allowed to flow into underground terra cotta pots where it was fermented and aged Please note that this was the technique for both red and white wines. There is still wine being made in small villages throughout this area in exactly the same way. In warm dry climates, the underground cellars were cool, dark, and vibration free—even today, these are the conditions we expect in the perfect wine cellar. And five thousand years later, the use of gravity to gently move grape juice and wine is considered the latest innovation—gravity flow wineries are now state of the art.
In Egypt
Despite the more important role of beer in Egypt, there is clear evidence of wine production and consumption in the early Dynasties--around 3,000 B.C.—including the hieroglyphic symbol for the grape arbor, and funereal stele with wine jars for the eternal life of the entombed. Even if the poor may have never tasted it, wine was clearly popular for royalty in the afterlife. Again, wine was the drink of the royals and the gods.
The earliest wines in Egypt came from the Nile Delta—not unexpectedly, as both the vines and the knowledge must have come from traders from the East. The Delta would have been their first port of entry, and it would have been cooler than the rest of Egypt—the better to grow grapes. In the early Egyptian scenes, the vines depicted are always red. In later ages, white and pink wine is also shown.
How was wine made in Egypt? The grapes were grown on overhead arbors or trellises, and there are many scenes of Egyptians picking the grapes into baskets. The grapes were crushed by foot. The men doing the work held on to a horizontal bar to make sure they didn't fall into the must. In some scenes, a couple of musicians are pictured playing music—and it must have been rhythmic music for them to dance. The juice was then drawn off into smaller jars for fermentation. Pressing was done with a large cloth sack twisted by two long poles for leverage. A team of up to five men used the poles to exert pressure on the sack and extract the juice.
(This use of twisted fibers is similar to the technology used for boats in Egypt. There the keel was replaced by a twisted fiber cord that pulls against the planking and gives the boat rigidity and strength. These techniques were necessary in a land with little good timber. )
Ancient Egyptian wines were "bottled" in clay jars, and then sealed with mud. The jars were tall and narrow, with a pointed bottom. If they were still slightly fermenting, a straw was inserted through the mud seal, and this allowed the residual CO2 to escape. When that was finished, the straw itself was sealed with mud.
These jars had clay "labels" which initially identified the name of the ruling Pharoah. By the time of the New Kingdom, these labels included the name of the winemaker, the owner of the estate, the region, and the year: just as labels today provide information on the winery, appellation, and vintage. In King Tut's tomb there were 26 of these wine jars for his later use. Some of the jars had been re-used, with new labels attached.
Almost all the grapes were grown in the North—and some came from different vineyards, or different winemakers, within the same region. The current belief is that Egyptian wines were primarily dry: they were described as astringent by the Greeks. And making sweet wines is chemically more difficult than making dry wines.
There is also a lot of evidence that some of the winemakers in Egypt had reputations for quality, and some of these were not traditional Egyptian names. Because some of these famed winemakers had Syrian names, there is the possibility that the early wine world shared expertise, and the Syrian winemakers were recruited to work in Egyptian vineyards. Perhaps they were consulting winemakers, as well. It is also possible that these wines were merely made in the Syrian style. After all, the history of wine is full of stories about wine labels that misrepresent their products!
A bas-relief from Tell el-Amarna in Egypt shows Queen Nefertiti banqueting with her husband, the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, although "banqueting" may be too refined a term for this gluttonous display. The chill, remote beauty we know from her famous bust in Berlin is here revealed as a two-fisted gourmand: seated on an exquisite throne, she seizes a chicken in both hands and tears into it with her teeth, nary a knife, napkin, or fingerbowl anywhere in sight. Akhenaten, meanwhile, belies his reputation as a frail visionary: with a strength—not to mention an appetite—more worthy of Hercules, he brandishes an entire rotisserie of meat as if it were nothing more than a shish kebab, gobbling the topmost steak like another Ramses the Great. Conspicuous consumption has seldom been so conspicuous.
In Anatolia--Modern Turkey and Armenia
The most successful enemies of Egypt, the Hittites had to struggle against both drought and frost in their mountainous home, but they grew grapes since the 3rd millennium B.C. Their wine was reserved for ceremonial use, and only for the very highest classes. In one record, a lesser wine was served to the king's guests, having been substituted by a devious sommelier. The sommelier was ordered beaten to death. I suspect they left no tip, either.
In ancient Anatolya, home of the Hitties, each male birth was celebrated by burying a drinking cup, which was then unearthed when the baby turned 21. Like those of millennia before, these cups had no flat bottom. They were to be filled and then drunk at once. Upon reaching maturity, each Hittite male was provided with the means for hospitality at his home.
The Canaanite Jar
As an improvement over the palm trunk barrel, the Canaanite Jar became the vessel of choice and is now found, widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean. They began in Southern Mesopotamia, before 2,000 BC, and were slowly transformed from flat bases to pointed ones—always with handles. The pointed base, like the punt in a Champagne bottle, is much stronger than a flat bottom. The jars themselves were also articles of trade. Even though we now find these jars in widely distributed locations, the clay source was always Palestine and the Levant.
By 1,500 BC, these jars are seen in Egypt, Knossos, Mycenae, Tarsus, and much of the Levant. While they were used for many commodities, they might also represent a highly-developed wine trade, and a taste for imported wines throughout the ancient world. The center of this trade appears to be Crete. It is also possible that much of the wine in those days was shipped in goatskins, rather than jars. But the goatskins have all disappeared, and we are left with only conjecture.
One of the key figures in ancient wine history is Ashurnasipal II—883-859 BC. He founded the new capital city of Nimrud, and he ordered wine served for the 70,000 people at its inauguration. The Assyrians are vitally important in the history of wine, because they united the mountains of the Caucasus with the shores of the Mediterranean. This helped turned wine from a rare drink of the upper classes to a commonplace beverage for all. Instead of a rare tribute paid to the gods and kings, now every soldier had his ration of wine, even if it wasn’t very good wine. And the grapevine became an emblem of power—either you have wine, or you wish you did. Those who could afford it drank wine did so from elegant wine cups—the classic kylixes, or open bowls, often with ridges to collect sediment or spices.
In these days, wine was frequently, if not always, mixed with any number of things, from spices to honey to beer. Some of this was simply for variety, but many of these wines must have suffered from the effects of what we could consider spoilage. Such seasonings and flavorings would have done much to hide some of the flaws. One can imagine each host with a recipe to improve the house red.
So how old is wine?
We don't know. Just as the use of the Cannanite jar was spread across the Mediterranean, the word for the wine it carried must have been shared as well. The ancient Hittite word for wine was wa-a-nas, similar to the Greek oenos, and the Hebrew yn or yayin. Linear B script from the palace at Knossos uses the work wo no, based on an Egyptian hieroglyph for the same sounds. This tablet also includes the name of the god, di-wo-no-so-jo, or Dionysus, the god (dio) of wine (oenos.) All of these words must trace their source back to the original Indo-European roots of our language. Thus our own word wine has ancient roots indeed.
Comments