grapes and the first wines were red, but the
Egyptians had a color mutant of the grape
plant and made white wines from it. They
would ferment grape juice in large clay jars.
The contents of the jars were eventually
sampled and graded, and the jars marked,
stoppered, and sealed with mud. The airtight
containers allowed wine to be aged for years.
Many wine amphoras found in the tombs of
the pharaohs carry labels with the date of
production, the region in which the wine was
made, sometimes a brief description and the
name of the winemaker. Wine
connoisseurship is ancient!
Greece and Rome Phoenician and Greek
traders introduced the cultivated vine
throughout the Mediterranean basin, where
the Greeks developed the cult of Dionysos,
god of vegetation, the vine, and the temporary
release from ordinary life that wine made
possible. By Homer’s time, about 700 BCE,