Celebrating Hajji Firuz Tepe---Evidence of Neolithic Wine!

Contemporary man can use a number of tools at his disposal to investigate where wine might have originated. The best indication currently points to Hajji Firuz Tepe (dating to 5400-5000 B.C.) located in the northern Zagros Mountains of Iran.¹
In Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture, published in 2003, Patrick McGovern credits the 1991 wine conference at the Robert Mondavi Winery as the impetus that lead to the discovery of evidence of Neolithic winemaking. McGovern decided to look in "his own backyard", the well-documented artifacts collected and housed at the University of Pennylsvania Museum for chemical evidence indicative of wine or winemaking.

Grapes contain tartaric acid. In fact, grapes, the baobab tree and the tamarind fruit are the only plants that contain tartaric acid, so tartaric acid can be used as a fingerprint or marker for the presence of grapes and it's products such as wine.³ Analyses of a yellow residue that came from sherds located in the University of Pennsylvania collection revealed the presence of tartaric acid as well as calcium tartrate. McGovern says that the presence of tartaric acid can be taken as a good indication that wine or a product of winemaking such as vinegar was stored in the jar.
As we enter another year in the 21^st Century, salute and cheers to our Neolithic Winemaking Heritage!
1. Ronald S. Jackson, Wine Science: Principles and Applications Third Edition 2008.
2. The chemical structure of tartaric acid was drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.
3. Patrick McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture.