c. 4100–4000 BCE · Vayots Dzor, Armenia
The Areni-1 winery
A cave in Armenia preserved what is currently the oldest known purpose-built winemaking installation.
What happened
Excavations at the Areni-1 cave complex uncovered a shallow clay basin draining into a buried jar, alongside grape pips, pressed skins and vine remains — a treading floor and collection vessel, in other words, and the oldest such arrangement yet found.
What makes it significant beyond its age is that it is equipment. The Georgian residue evidence shows wine was being made; this shows a place built for making it, which implies production beyond a single household.
The cave also contained burial goods, and the installation sat alongside them, which has led to the reasonable but unproven suggestion that the wine had a funerary or ritual purpose.
Described in popular coverage as "the world’s oldest winery", which is accurate only with "so far discovered" attached. It is the oldest known installation; the Georgian residues are older evidence of the practice.
How firmly this is dated
Inferred. Established by archaeological or scientific inference, which produces a dating range rather than a date.
Excavation of a cave complex, radiocarbon dated, with a clay treading floor, a collection vat and jars carrying grape residues. The dating is secure; the scale of production it represents is an interpretation.
What this follows from, and leads to
A timeline is a list; these are the links between its entries.
c. 6000 BCE
The earliest evidence for winemaking
Chemical residues in Neolithic pottery from Georgia provide the earliest widely accepted evidence for grape wine.
c. 9000–6000 BCE
The domestication of the grapevine
Genomic research has revised the single-origin account of grape domestication towards multiple near-simultaneous events.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Archaeological research on the origins of viticulture and fermented beverages — University of Pennsylvania Museum / peer-reviewed archaeological literature