People acquired a preference for grapes as the basic ingredient for wine very early on, although on some African societies dates, bananas and the sap of palm tree were sometimes used, and indeed they sometimes still are. But wherever grapes could be grown they supplanted all other fruit as the basis for wine, just as barley did in the case of beer.
Viticulture is estimated to have originated in the 6th or 7th century B.C in the region to the south of the Black Sea. From there the crop spread to the four corners of the earth. Because of their higher alcohol content, wines could be kept longer than beer, and proved a suitable trading product over relatively long distances.
As a result, in ancient Egypt, whether beer was the drink of the ordinary people imported wine was a luxury item for the higher classes who used it – among other things – in religious ceremonies and for its medicinal properties. Later on, the Egyptians become wine growers themselves; we have hieroglyphics representing an Egyptian winepress dating as early as 3200 B.C.
In the Hellenic civilizations, and later in the Roman Empire, wine made from grapes was the dominant popular drink. Whenever the climate favored grapes, they were always the preferred basis for wine and viticulture predominated over the production of beer.The high yield obtained from cultivating grapes together with the simplicity of the fermentation process and wine’s relatively high alcohol content – making it more intoxicating than beer and easier to keep – underlay the supremacy of wine.
Alongside the qualitative differences between wine and beer there are also social and political differences between growing grapes for wine and growing grain for beer. Cereals are annuals. The crop is harvested only a few months after the seeds are sown. This means that even nomad agriculturalists could grow crop to supply themselves with beer; the social and political conditions to be fulfilled are minimal.
The cultivation of grape vines, on the other hand, is a long term investment, with the vines standing vulnerable on the land for a few years before they yield fruit. Lasting peace and a stable allocation of land within society are hence pre-requisites for commercial wine growing. Thus a certain degree of state formation – political stability and peace – is an absolute pre-requisite for a profitable wine growing business.
History of Wine