Time capsules reveals fascinating wine discoveries.....
- BarSomWizard
- Jun 11, 2020
- 4 min read
"Human beings have been drinking wine for thousands of years, leaving all manner of evidence behind.Time capsules filled with the weird, the rare, and the surprising.One thing time capsules had in common, lots of wine.
Here are some of the most fascinating wine discoveries....."
Egyptian Kings
Jars encrusted with wine residue have been found in the tombs of both King Scorpion I (3,100 BC) and Tutankhamun (1,300 BC). While King Scorpion’s tomb contained around 300 jars of wine made with clay from Palestine – suggesting the wine had been imported from hundreds of miles away – King Tutankhamun’s 26 jars are deemed to have come from nearby, since domestic cultivation for wine production in Egypt began around his time. This discovery also provides some of the earliest examples of cellar labelling, as King Tut’s jars featured descriptions such as “Year four. Wine of very good quality of the House-of-Aton of the Western River. Chief vintner Khay”.
Stone Age
The oldest evidence of wine-making was discovered in 2017, by archaeologists excavating two Stone Age villages in Georgia. Here, they found 8,000-year old jars containing what they believe are traces of grape wine. One jar was even decorated with what the researchers suspect might represent a cluster of grapes. Why is this such an important discovery, beyond the fact that it’s the oldest evidence of wine-making? Historians tend to agree that the Neolithic period was a constant struggle for survival, but wine fermentation isn’t a survival necessary. This suggests that people back then had the resources to enjoy themselves beyond simply staying alive.
Dikili Tash Greece
While excavations at the prehistoric settlement of Dikili Tash, in the Eastern Macedonia region of Greece have been ongoing since the nineteenth century, wine was only recently discovered there. Dated to 4200 BC, the ceramic vases, which contain the residue of “thousands of carbonized grape pips together with the skins,” makes this the oldest chemically confirmed wine in Europe. As Europe, and Greece in particular, play such an outsized role in the history and development of wine, the discovery bears mentioning.
Kyrenia ship Cyprus
Wine was being traded at least as early as 2300 BC, the date of a shipwreck (similar to the Kyrenia ship) carrying over 2,500 amphorae, discovered in 1999. Its origin and destination are unknown, but must have been along the trade route between Greece and Egypt.
Chalcolithic period
Pottery fragments ended up in the stores of the Cyprus Museum still unwashed in wooden boxes. They were dated to the chalcolithic period (between 3500BC-3000BC).Twelve of these showed traces of tartaric acid (a component of wine) proving that the 5,500-year-old vases were used for wine.
POMPEII (ITALY)
Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burying and preserving the then-Roman city of Pompeii in ash and pumice. The site was discovered in 1599, but excavations didn’t begin for another 150 years due to religious concerns. Over the centuries, archaeologists have made countless wine-related discoveries, as Pompeii was a major wine producer in Roman times. The city’s fertile lands (being near a volcano is a gift and an occasional curse for winemakers; see Mt. Etna on Sicily) supported numerous wineries, which produced more than enough wine for consumption within the city. Wine from Pompeii was exported up to Rome and other parts of the Empire
Castle
In the 1985 Czech authorities discovered an extensive wine collection stashed beneath the floorboards of a medieval Czech monastery. The collection, dating back 150 years, had survived Nazi rule, cold war espionage and numerous American fortune hunters, and was recently valued at nearly £850,000. Historians believe the 133 bottles of wine belonged to the wealthy Beaufort-Spontin family, who lived at Becov Castle, and who fled to Belgium after the war ended, accused of being Nazi sympathisers. Before escaping, the family hid the wine under the floor of the chapel in the hopes of one day returning for their collection. Alas, authorities discovered the wine before they could ever return.
Speyer
Dated in various sources to a period between 300 and 350AD, was discovered in 1867, in the town of Speyer. Two sarcophagi were found during the excavation of a Roman tomb. The pair in the tomb, presumably man and wine, were buried with sixteen glass vessels (six with the woman and ten with the man). All but one were empty. The single preserved vessel, on display at the Historical Museum of the Palatinate, in Speyer, Germany, contains what is considered the world’s oldest liquid wine. The 1.5-liter glass ‘wine bottle’ would have been rare in its own time, as Romans typically relied on sturdier ceramic vessels to hold and transport wine.
Liberty Hall Museum
A one-of-a-kind wine collection featuring bottles that are nearly as old as the country itself has been uncovered behind a boarded-up wall in a New Jersey museum that was previously the home of the state's first governor.
The stash of spirits was found hidden in plain sight at the Liberty Hall Museum, which was formerly the home of Governor William Livingston, who served in office from 1776 to 1790.
During a six-month renovation of the wine cellar at the historic building, the team found three cases of Madeira wine believed to be from 1796.
Baltic Shipwreck
A treasure trove of 170-year-old champagne has been unearthed from the bottom of the sea. In 2010, a group of divers in the Baltic Sea happened upon the remains of a sunken trade schooner just off the coast of Finland. Scattered amongst the wreckage 160 feet below the surface, they discovered a treasure sent from Dionysus himself—168 bottles of French bubbly that had aged in near perfect conditions for decades.
Several champagne houses were represented, including Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin,a well-known brand founded in 1772 that still exists today.
Marios Constantinides Sommelier
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