Persian Tradition wine: It all started in the Zagros Mountains.
''Fermented beverages, especially wine, have long played a crucial role in the transfer of culture from one people to another around the world.'' *1
This is one of the key sentences in the important publication of the group of Patrick E. McGovern.
In an earlier study this stunning piece is written:
''Viniculture stretched out its tentacles and entwined itself with one culture after another and laid the foundation for civilization itself. As medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance, and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies, and society.'' *2
Where in the world was the first wine made?
Prof. Mc Govern is very clear as to where the roots of our wine culture started:
"Our earliest finding is that the Neolithic villagers of the northern Zagros mountains of Iran were making wine and storing wine in some of the earliest pottery jars from the Middle East, ca. 5400 B.C. *3
"Villagers of the Zagros mountains of Iran were making wine ca. 5400 B.C.''
*1 Patrick E. McGovern, Beginning of viniculture in France: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America:
*2 Patrick E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture.
*3 Ancient Wine, The first wine: an archaeochemical detective story