1. You may associate ancient wine with the toga-wearing set, but by the time Romans were quaffing it, the beverage was itself ancient: 7,000-year-old pottery from sites in Iran’s Zagros Mountains tested positive for residues specific to grapes.
2. A couple of hundred miles north, archaeologists have found numerous artifacts near the Armenian village of Areni that point to organized wine production as early as 4000 B.C.
3. Winemaking may go back so far because it’s so easy: Smash some grapes and let the juice mix with yeasts naturally present on the skins for a few days. Voila! Paleowine.
4. A big difference between domesticated wine grapes and their wild ancestors is pollination. Wild grapes are dioecious; plants are male or female. Domesticated grapes are usually self-pollinating hermaphrodites, which improves trait consistency.
Since the days of antiquity, from Greece to Rome, vinophiles have touted the alleged health benefits of wine. ...
