c. 800–300 BCE · Greece and the Aegean
Wine in ancient Greece
Greece developed wine as a cultural institution, with named regional wines and an elaborate drinking culture.
What happened
Greek wine was traded by named origin — Chian, Thasian, Lesbian — with reputations and price differences attached. That is recognisably the beginning of the idea that where a wine comes from matters.
The symposium was a structured drinking occasion with its own rules, including the near-universal practice of diluting wine with water. Drinking it neat was considered barbaric.
Wine was stored and shipped in amphorae sealed with pine resin, which flavoured the contents. Retsina is the surviving descendant of that practice.
Greek colonists carried vines to southern Italy and southern France, founding what became Marseille and planting the roots of French viticulture.
How firmly this is dated
Documented. Recorded contemporaneously. The date is not in question.
Literary sources, amphora typology and stamp evidence, and excavated symposium ware.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Archaeological research on the origins of viticulture and fermented beverages — University of Pennsylvania Museum / peer-reviewed archaeological literature
- Wines of Greece — Greek Wine Federation
Along the timeline
Before · c. 1200–800 BCE
Phoenician trade spreads the vine
Phoenician traders carried vines and winemaking across the Mediterranean, seeding much of what became European viticulture.
After · c. 200 BCE – 400 CE
Roman wine culture and expansion
Rome industrialised wine production and planted the vineyards that became the great European regions.