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15 November 2017
Archaeology

At www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/13/evidence-of-worlds-earliest-wine… … the Guardian wine drinking metropolitan set are pleased to learn that clay pottery dating back 8000 years bear the tell tale traces of wine making. This comes from Georgia, in the Transcaucasus, on the back of the discovery of winemaking in northern Iran 7000 years ago. The Georgian site was a Neolithic village characterised by mud brick housing, stone and bone tools, and the farming of cattle and pigs, and wheat and barley. C14 derived from charred grains found near the pots were used to arrive at the Georgian date.

Evidence of wine making has also surfaced in China's Henan province – again dating back 7000 years. In this instance the wine was made from a mixture that included grapes as well as hawthorn berries, rice beer, and honey mead (or all three were made in the same container at different times). Home brew enthusiasts in the 1970s often used hawthorn berries along with elder berries and blackberries to make wine, a practicable thing to do as the berries were found in hedge rows at the same time of year. The Georgian wine was made from pure grape.

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