Not France or Italy: This ancient land holds the oldest clue to winemaking
While you may most readily associate southern Europe with winemaking, you need to look further afield when it comes to the ancient history of this beverage.
Think of wine, and you may picture a bright European vineyard rolling across the hills of France, Spain, or Italy. But when it comes to the ancient history of this popular beverage, we need to look a little further afield.
Long before the 1979 Islamic Revolution halted alcohol production, Shiraz in central Iran had been a celebrated wine region for millennia.
Iranian‑American vintner Darioush Khaledi recounted to the BBC his evenings spent sipping wine. For more than a thousand years, mey (meaning wine) and saghi (the wine bearer) have been central symbols in Persian poetry, with the 14th-century poet Shamsudin Mohammad Hafiz a lasting cultural icon.
“I remember my father bringing in the grapes and putting them in a big clay vat,” he said. “I would climb on top and smell and enjoy the wine. It wasn’t just about drinking wine. It was an adventure.”
Iran’s fascinating wine history
Archaeological evidence reveals that wine production in Persia dates back over 7,000 years.
In 1968, six Neolithic clay jars discovered in Iran’s Zagros Mountains were found to contain wine residue—the oldest chemical proof of winemaking anywhere. Grape cultivation in the Shiraz region emerged around 2500 BC as vines were moved from the mountains to the plains.
All of this ended in 1979, when Iran’s new Islamic rulers shut down wineries, closed commercial vineyards, and dismantled a culture stretching back millennia.
Even so, the regime hasn’t halted the flow: wine culture still persists in the country.
A seller named Allan told The Ne New York Times, “I tell myself that the fine doesn’t even come to the tax I should be paying. The demand is high and the income is excellent. It is hard to quit.”
The same newspaper also reports that “different kinds of liquor are now smuggled into the country from the Kurdish areas of Iraq. Various flavours of Absolut cost $21 a bottle and Baileys costs $43.”
Iran is now led by Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who continues his strict regime of Islamic law. The country has recently been embroiled in a hugely costly conflict with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli army, and the two sides have been firing missiles at each other for days as tensions rise in the Middle East.
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