'World's oldest wine' found in 8,000-year-old jars in Georgia

Scientists say 8,000-year-old pottery fragments have revealed the earliest evidence of grape wine-making. The earthenware jars containing residual wine compounds were found in two sites south of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, researchers said. Some of the jars bore images of grape clusters and a man dancing. Previously, the earliest evidence of wine-making was from pottery dating from about 7,000 years ago found in north-western Iran. The latest finds were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "We believe this is the oldest example of the domestication of a wild-growing Eurasian grapevine solely for the production of wine," said co-author Stephen Batiuk, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto. "Wine is central to civilisation as we know it in the West. As a medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies and society in the ancient Near East."...more