#27: The History Of Wine Part 1 of 3 (the Cliff’s Squire’s Notes version)

June 2023

THE HISTORY OF WINE Part 1 of 3  (the Cliff’s Squire’s Notes version)

When Did Mankind First Grow Grapes and Make Wine?                                                                

The story of wine must begin with the ancient story of the vines themselves.  The earliest grapevines on our planet, dating back some 400,000 years, were wild grapevines under the family of flowering plants known as Vitaceae.  It was this Vitaceae which developed over the millennia into a sub-category genus we call Vitis.  From these Vitis vines, almost all other grapevines that we know today were created, first by the natural evolution of mother nature over time.  But then, a very long time ago at the end of the earth’s last ice age, pre-historic stone-age mankind became less nomadic and started settling down.  When that happened, those no-longer-nomadic folks decided that planting crops for future food consumption might be a good idea.  Selecting and planting crops eventually led to what we call “domestication”, the adaptation of wild plants for human use in order to increase desirability.    One of those crops they planted, cultivated and domesticated were grapevines.                             

How Do We Know When This Domestication Happened?                       

It is timely that you asked!  Until recently, it was thought that this domestication of wild grapevines by mankind happened about 8,500 years ago.  It is an amazing coincidence with the timing of this article that only a few months ago, scientists and archaeologists made an astounding discovery that set our historical timetable on its ear!  In March, 2023, these researchers discovered and unearthed wine pips (seeds) and using DNA and carbon-dating, now place that moment of domestication of grapes by humans much earlier than previously thought.  We now know for a fact that wild grapevines were cultivated and domesticated by mankind, not 8,500 years ago, but about 11,000 years ago!  It is also now concluded by many of those researchers that grapevines were most likely the first fruit crop domesticated by humans.  During this recent discovery a few months ago, scientists were able to establish that domestication of wild grapevines happened in two different regions of the world (now western Asia and Europe) and each developed a distinctively different lineage of grapevines.  The western Asia lineage produced mostly table grapes but the lineage that traveled through much of present-day Europe developed into a new species of grapevine that we call Vitis vinifera.   It is this noble Vitis vinifera ancestor that evolved into our many different varieties that we know as today’s wine grapes.  For this article, we’ll only deal with Vitis vinifera, which was domesticated, cultivated and transported by these pre-historic folks as they migrated over eastern Europe. 

         It was during this cultivation and domestication over a long period of time that mother nature and mankind augmented one another. The Vitis grapevine that morphed into Vitis vinifera by humans became a true hermaphrodite (a “perfect” plant in biology) having both male and female sexes on the same vine.  Early folks recognized that the magic of these Vitis vinifera was that there was no longer any need for cross-pollination from one vine to another…each vine could flower and create its own berries in isolation.  What folks also came to realize was that the berries created on these many varieties of Vitis vinifera “perfect” grapevines could sire grapes that would produce wines of outstanding quality.

How Many Different Varieties of Vitis Vinifera Grapevines are there?   Today, there are between 5,000 and 10,000 different and unique varieties of Vitis vinifera grapevines in the world, of which about 1,400 varieties that are currently made into wines.  If you think about it, 1,400 different wine grape varieties is an huge number!  I oft times will ask folks to name all the wine grape varieties they can…and if they’re pretty wine-savvy, they can list about 30.  (How many can you name?)  Portugal alone produces about 250 different varieties and chances are that the vast majority of them you’ve never heard of.  (Portugal’s most well-known variety that makes a superbly dry red wine is Touriga Nacional…ever heard of it?)  Suzy and I will be flying to Portugal this June and will be traveling up and down the Douro River about the time you are reading this article.  Why?  We’re on a fact-finding mission and want to taste all 250 varieties!  (Just kidding.)  The sheer number of Vitis vinifera grape varieties there are in the world from which wine is made is astounding.  Many of them you can’t even read or pronounce because they are written in the Greek or Cyrillic alphabets.

Were Humans Responsible for Creating All these Different Varieties of Grapes?                                                                    

Yes and no.  Once mankind had domesticated wild grapevines, humans began learning how to pollinate from one perfect variety to another, thus creating new varieties.  (There is obviously no written record of early mankind doing that.)  But Mother Nature was also responsible for this pollination from one variety to another.  For instance, Cabernet Sauvignon, the most highly touted red Vitis vinifera grape variety in the world, was created in France in the 17th century by an accidental cross pollination of its parents: Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.  From that accidental union, folks named the grapevine Cabernet Sauvignon.  (Would it still be as popular if they’d named it “Blanc Franc”?)  Even to this day and all over the world, new grape varieties are being created by scientists.  Here in the US, Cornell University has been cross breeding plants, including grapevines, for a hundred years.

Why is It Important to Create These New Vitis Vinifera Varieties?          Good question!  With the earth’s temperatures warming up, we need to create new grapevine varieties that will produce great wine in climates that may not be optimum for today’s varieties.  Will Burgundy, for instance, always be cool enough to grow Pinot Noir? Plus, researchers are experimenting and fine tuning the different varieties that we already know and love, creating versions that are more adaptive.  These days, sparkling wine grapes are even being grown in the UK, which would be unheard of a few decades ago…and the Brits are producing excellent bubbly!

Next month, we’ll continue this discussion of the history of grapevines and how (we think) grapes came to be made into wine!

“Wine is the intellectual part of the meal; meats are merely the material part”.             Alexander Dumas

Saúde!  (“Cheers” in Portuguese)