How it began
In a cave near the village of Areni, in present-day Armenia, archaeologists found a wine press, fermentation and storage vessels, drinking cups, and dried grape vines, skins and seeds. The equipment was first detected in 2007, when excavations co-directed by Gregory Areshian of UCLA and the Armenian archaeologist Boris Gasparyan began at the Areni-1 cave complex. Pottery from the installation was radiocarbon dated to between 4100 and 4000 BCE. The makers were a prehistoric people who lived long before the modern state.
Before it existed
Chemical and archaeological evidence of wine, though not of a winery, had been found in northern Iran dating back about 7,000 years, roughly a thousand years before Areni. Earlier DNA studies of cultivated grape varieties had pointed to the mountains of Armenia, Georgia and neighboring countries as the birthplace of viticulture. Wine expert Patrick McGovern said the Areni find implies large-scale production and so a grape that was already domesticated.
How it works
The press is a shallow basin about one meter long, made of hard-packed clay with raised edges, set next to a vat about 60 centimeters deep. Areshian said the layout suggests that the vintners pressed grapes with their feet. Juice drained from the basin into the vat, where it was left to ferment, and the wine was then stored in jars. The cool, dry conditions of the cave would have suited it as a cellar. Chemical tests on the pottery found malvidin, the pigment largely responsible for the color of red wine.
Who pushed back
McGovern, who was not part of the study, agreed that the evidence argues convincingly for a wine-making facility but noted a limit. Malvidin could have come from other local fruits such as pomegranates. He said that traces of tartaric acid, another chemical indicator of grapes, together with the malvidin and radiocarbon evidence, would substantiate that the facility is the earliest yet found.
What lasted
Twenty burials were identified around the press, and drinking cups were found in and around the graves, so Areshian suggested the wine was tied to rituals for the dead. The team called the find important because wine making was a major social and technological step. Growing vines required people to learn the plant's cycles of growth, its need for water, and how to deal with fungi and flies. McGovern noted that small treading vats draining into underground jars were later used all over the Near East and the Mediterranean.
