Caracterwines
The origin

of the vine

Mount Ararat
According to the Bible, Noah was the first winemaker. His ark stranded, as much as we know, about 5,000 years ago on Mount Ararat. A mountain situated in a region of today's Turkey, Armenia and Iran. There are also many indications around this region, which prove the correctness of this statement form the old testament. Georgia and Anatolia, however, reveled to a far older wie region than suspected, since geologist found seeds of vines, which have also been cultivated, originated from a time 8000 years before Christ. But an actual wine culture only started with the beginning of settlement and civilization. Remarkably, the oldest wine press in the world was found in Hadschi Firuz Tepe, an Iranian Neolithic village, which according to our current research and knowledge had plant of vines around 7,400 years ago.
Evidence shows us today that vines were first cultivated in the southern Caucasus, present-day Georgia, around 5800 B.C., and in the 5th century B.C.. Later on also by the Sumerians in present-day southern Iraq. Furthermore, Phoenician traders brought the first vines from there for the wine production and development into their country, today's Lebanon. It was most-likely the grape Vitis vinifera pontica, a presumed predecessor of the Chardonnay vine. They then developed and spread wine cultivation in the southern levants and grew into an important wine producing country with a profound knowledge about wine production. The Phoenicians also brought viticulture to other regions of the Mediterranean, such as Morocco and Spain. As a result ancient the Egyptians began to cultivate vines 3000 before Christ, followed by the Minoans developed the first noble vines on Crete a millennium later.
Caucasus
The Persian Empire is also considered to be the country in which vine cultivation and winemaking originated from. Shiraz for example, a city near Persepolis, is often falsely associated with the origin of the grape variety Syrah. Taking to account that the city itself was famous for its vines and cultivation, it also carried the reputation of producing the best wine of the Middle East. And of course their wine culture didn't evolve without a beautiful story about the origin and first fermentation: A king stored his grapes in the cellar, which at some point began to ferment. First, people thought the grapes had been poisoned by evil spirits and wanted to throw them away. But then the queen fell ill and experience and unbearable headache. She wanted to die rather than live with this pain and decided to drink the poison, which was nothing else but fermented grape juice, as an act of suicide. The result stunned them all, since she didn't loose her life but rather got rid of her headache while getting cheerful and funky. This is how the wine became the official drink of Persia.
Persian King invents the wine
This text was researched and written by Charlotte Münch © Copyright & and all other right of all texts on weinstore24 belongs to caracter.tv. In addition, visit our Infopage libanonweine.com for more information about the wines of Lebanon.