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Full Version: Where does wine really come from?
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http://www.winemag.com/2017/08/09/where-...come-from/

"When you think of wine, most likely what comes to mind are powerhouse regions like Bordeaux, Napa, or Champagne. Or, grapes like Pinot Noir, Malbec, Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon.

But a growing group of winemakers in the Middle East, Western Asia and Eastern Europe are eager to remind they represent the oldest wine-producing regions in the world, and that they’re making wines like nowhere else on earth.

At a recent event hosted by Smithsonian Associates in Washington, DC, winemakers and wine historians examined who could in fact claim to be the original creators of wine. While it’s hard to pinpoint where the first fermented grape beverage was made, researchers traced the origins of domesticated grapes to an area around the headwaters of the Tigris River in Turkey.

Dr. Patrick McGovern, scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, has traveled the region extensively looking for an answer..."
Fermented mare's milk or kefir has been traced to Kurdistan so it should come as no surprise that they also fermented grapes and grains.

" Using infrared spectrometry, liquid chromatology, and a wet chemical test, was found calcium salt from tartaric acid, which occurs naturally in large amounts only in grapes. Resin from the terebinth tree was also present, presumably used as a preservative, indicating that the wine was deliberately made and did not result from the unintentional fermentation of grape juice. Grapes still grow wild at that and other parts of Kurdistan.

Meanwhile, grape presses made of stone and dated to the late third millennium BC have been recently found at Titris Hoyuk, south of Adyaman in western Kurdistan, Turkey. Wine--that “beverage of the gods,” seem now to have been invented and improved by the ancestors of the Kurds. "

http://www.kurdistanica.com/?q=node/199