Just like aging a fine wine, the domestication of vines throughout Italy was a fairly slow process. One of the characteristic exports of the country developed for thousands of years. The earliest proof of domestic grapes in Italy dates from the Bronze Age, between 1400 and 1200 BC. The findings are detailed in one Study published on April 23 in the magazine Plos One.
Seeds of discovery
Nowadays, grape growing produces over 80 million tons of fresh grapes annual. Although the Italian wine is very prominent, less is known about the history of viticulture in the Western Mediterranean Sea compared to other parts of Europe and Asia.
“Winemaking has had a profound significance for human culture and continues to do this today, both in religious ceremonies and cultural traditions,” study co-author and archaeobotanist Mariano Ucchesu tells Popular science. “From an economic point of view, grapes are among the most cultivated fruits in the world, so much so that more than 260 million hectoliters of wine are produced every year.”
In 2008Ucchesu and other researchers on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia discovered that a large amount of plants remains in a Bronze Age. Because of the environment within the well, the plant remains were very well preserved – including thousands of grape seeds. Ucchesu started to study the seeds and the plant remains for his doctoral thesis and the research team discovered that the archaeological seeds belonged to domestic – or cultivated variation of grapes.
“Until that time it was assumed that it was the Phoenicians and later the Romans who spread domestic grapes in Italy, while our study demonstrated that domestic grapes were present in Sardinia about 3000 years ago,” says Ucchesu. “This discovery led me to further investigate the phenomenon; I wanted to understand whether the case of Sardinia was an isolated or whether there were comparable cases elsewhere in continental Italy.”
A new wine time line
Herein New study, Uccchesu and a team of institutions in France, Italy and Spain have analyzed themselves 1,700 grape seeds discovered from 25 archaeological places In and around Italy. The seeds include 7,000 years, from the Neolithic period to the medieval period.
In the locations older than 1000 BC. Share almost all grape seeds the size and proportions of modern wild grapevines. This suggests that these fruits have been collected from the wild. Things started to change from around 1000 BC. Up to 600 CE. The majority of the grape seeds from this period seem to have been more formed as modern domestic varieties. However, there still seems to be a considerable variation in the seed size and relationships and the ratio of both domestic and wild grapes from site to site. By the medieval period – around 700 CE – domical grape seeds are abundant and similar to modern cultivated grapes. This timeline indicates that grape growing in Italy probably started during the late Bronze Age. Many centuries of gradual domestication probably followed, with the mixing of wild and cultivated wines to create new domestic varieties.
[ Related: Trojans of all classes enjoyed a nice jug of wine. ]
Two Italian regions mainly show proof of these first traces. Campania, in southeastern Italy, had grape seeds that were more domesticated and found in the Grotta di pertosa caveS. In Sardinia, thousands of grape seeds were discovered at the Archaeological site of SA OSA.
According to Ucchesu, understanding how grape seeds evolved over time evolve one of the most surprising parts of this study. The Radical shift in seed form that took place in the sixth millennium BC. Indicates that around this time, communities started to have a real interest in grape growing.
“The shape of the seeds continued to evolve to the Roman period, in which the grape cultivation intensified, which gave rise to new varieties through the intersection of wild and domestic grapes,” he says.
‘Echos of a millennial trip’
Although these results are in line with some precious research, future study on more archaeological sites will help to fill in this image of Mediterranean grape growing. The team from this study is currently planning to plan a project to analyze the old DNA of archaeological materials to determine which old seeds have led to contemporary grape varieties.
For all wine lovers, Ucchesu also says that it is important: “To imagine that we taste the echoes of a millennial trip with every sip of fine wine, a story woven by the time to arrive in our palate.”
More Deals, Reviews and Purchase Guides
