Wine history, 2 millions y.o. vine fossil of Valdarno (Chianti area)

Wine is one of the most popular beverages around the world, the origin of vine is uncertain, some studies say Mesopotamia, but lately in the Upper Valdarno area they have been found fossils.

Many do not believe it can be possible, but in the Valdarno area near Montevarchi town, they found important grapevines fossils (Vitis vinifera) dating back 2 million years old.

These exceptional finds confirm the hypothesis the Vine as a climbing plant that it was growing wild in an enormous size area, which included southern Europe and Middle-East, but maybe also Asia, before the appearance of the first man.

The vine, so, goes back to the geologic time, they found Vitis sezannensis leaves’ imprints, found in layers of Paleocenico tuff in Sézannes site, France, dated between 59 and 55 million years ago. Other vine fossil traces were found in Cretaceous strata of about 140 million years ago.

The Vine was there. It was a simple plant, which produced fruit. But when and who began to use it as a cultivation plant?

The Vine domestication origins

DNA analysis on sativa and sylvestris subspecies (Vitis Vinifera), on samples taken in all Eurasian countries, confirmed the hypothesis which see the Middle East region as the original area, where the man began to domesticate the vine.

Furthermore, from investigations on the so-called “the vine fertile triangle” (current zones of Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) a genetic relationship has emerged and it confirms the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, in the massif of Taurus, the most likely area where the first vine domestication happened.

First wine drinkers (fermented grape juice)

The first “wine tasters” of history are ideally positioned in the Neolithic period; the wine discovery we suppose was an accidental event dues to a natural fermentation of grape juice they stowed in containers similar to amphoras.

Latest vine fossils have been found in France, in the Paleolithic site of Terra Amata, near Nice, dating from about 400,000 years ago, that evidences Homo heidelbergensis was gathering and consuming wild grapes. Another important discovery dating from about 19,400 years ago is the Israeli site called Ohalo II, an ancient camp of hunters and gatherers (on Tiberias lake) now submerged. Thanks to the water we have a very good preservation of many fossils, including Vitis sylvestris seeds.

Even in the Franchthi cave in Greece, they found Vitis sylvestrisin seeds dating back about 12,000 years ago, when the site was visited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

To Atlit-Yam, in the Neolithic site of Haifa, Israeli coast (dated between 6900 and 6300 years B.C.), they found fossils into an ancient well, including Vitis sylvestris seeds.

In Italy, a relevant example is La Marmotta, sul Lago di Bracciano (Roma), dated between 5750 and 5260 B.C.; they found fragments of Vitis sylvestris with characters of an embryonic form of cultivation.

Dioniso e Persefone, santuario di Persefone a Locri (in Magna Grecia)

Mari, on the Eufrate, was an important trade center between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean area of Syria, for millennia. Syria was important for wine export, their superb beverage was famous in all Middle East.

Watch the video: Greek and Etruscan vine cultivation

The Etruscans, in the central-Tyrrhenian area of Italy, Eighth century B.C., preferred to drink undiluted wine, that was natural, while Romans consumed it as Greeks: mixed with water, spices and herbal infusions. They used the term mulsum for wine mixed with honey. A curiosity: this drink was offered at the beginning of Roman lunches, really similar to our modern appetizer.

How Vine has been riproduced?

The sylvestris and sativa Vine’s subspecies are morphologically very similar, and studies suppose that these small differences came by human selections and not by natural evolutions.

The main difference between the wild vine and the cultivated one is the flower’s sex: the sylvestris subspecies is dioecious, which means plant’s flowers can be 100% staminati (male) or 100% pistillate (female). The sativa, instead, is a hermaphrodite plant, it has both flowers. But studies discovered a small percentage of hermaphrodite flowers in the sylvestris vine too, and surely, that’s the precise Vine type which humans used to start the domestication.

Our ancestors have probably tried thousands of times, because if they had chosen a male plant, the vine would have never fruited. By choosing a female plant, it would have fruited only if fertilized by pollination (therefore, the presence of both was needed). Thank to an hermaphrodite plant, instead, humans would have had grapes without any pollination problems.

It is supposed that, Mesolithic or Neolithic human beings began to cultivate wild vine to secure the opportunity to pick grapes closer to home, especially avoiding the danger of climbing trees (remind, the vine is a climbing plant).

For this reason, studies suppose Vine’s domestication occurred starting from that 2–3% of hermaphrodite wild vines that still today grow naturally. Subsequently, the domesticated vines were propagated by sowings or by cuttings, and for thousands of years, man continued to actively select the best ones (with larger bunches, with the highest sugar content or with special aromas), creating an enormous amount of different types of grape, all those we find today all over the world, from sea level to high mountains.

There are about 10,000 different varieties of grapes, actually, on our planet.

Article on: http://www.chiantilife.wine/en/wine-history-chianti-valdarno-area/

Sources: Lastoriaviva.it / PoloMusealedelLazio / ArcheologiadellaViteedelVino / ManualeViticolturaModerna

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