Book About Ancient Wine
 

Patrick E. McGovern is the director of the Molecular Archaeology
Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and has done much research
concerning ancient wines. I read a review of his book in the March/April
issue of Archaeology which was quite favorable. The book is Ancient
Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003, 360 pp, US$ 29.95 list price). It can be had
from Amazon for US$20.97 when I checked just before posting this.

Although this is not a cocktail table book, it probably would be of
interest to the serious general reader interested in the subject. A
single course in Chemistry would help one understand the technical
details of how residues of ancient wine are detected, but you do not
need to understand these details to follow the results and conclusions.
This is not a textbook for learning how to do research.

McGovern suggests that modern-day Georgia and Armenia were likely the
site where the Eurasian wine grape was domesticated about 8000 years
ago. Winemaking spread south from there. Wine was being made in Iran at
Hajji Firuz Tepe by 5400 BC. In ancient Egypt, about 4000 years later,
amphoras found in the palace of Amenhotep III in western Thebes gave the
vintage, quality, appellation, and purpose or occasion for the wine.