Wine is older than writing. The earliest traces of winemaking — around 8,000 years old — come from Georgia and the Caucasus, where grapes were fermented in large buried clay vessels called *qvevri*. The method is still used today.
Mesopotamia and Egypt
In Egypt wine became a drink for priests, pharaohs and gods. Vines were painted in tombs and amphorae were marked with vintage, vineyard and winemaker — the world's first wine labels.
Greece
The Greeks spread the vine around the Mediterranean and turned wine into culture. They had their own wine god, Dionysus, and drank wine diluted with water during philosophical gatherings, *symposia*. Drinking it undiluted was considered barbaric.
Rome
The Romans industrialised wine. They refined pruning, identified good sites and built a trade that reached the whole empire — as far as Gaul and Germania. Many of Europe's classic wine regions were founded by the Romans.
The ideas we still live by are already here: that place matters, that vintages differ, and that wine is both drink and culture.