Burgundy tasting at Capital Grille Orlando: Part II

Stacole Fine Wines, a member of the Vintner Group, hosted a tasting at the Capital Grille Orlando on April 24th for selected area collectors and retailers.  The wines on offer were one 2008 white Burgundy and 11 Côte de Nuit reds dating from 2006-2009.  I have covered the tasting of the white and the 2006 and 2007 reds in a previous post and will cover the remaining wines in this dispatch.

Red 2008 Flight

The 2008 vintage kept Burgundy vignerons on their collective toes.  They confronted mildew, odium, rot, and a number of other vineyard challenges which forced a minimum of two sprayings.  The grapes ripened rapidly in the two weeks prior to harvest when conditions became more favorable.  Truly a "miracle" vintage.

Domaine François Lamarche La Grande Rue Grand Cru

La Grande Rue Grand Cru is an 11.33 ha monopole of Domaine François Lamarche, a multi-generational family farm.  While most of the Côte de Nuit soil is ferruginous limestone over stony, rocky, or clay-soil subsoils,Vosne Romanée has a deeper clay-limestone soil.  Grapes are hand-harvested and sorted twice (once in the field and again in the winery) before being destemmed and placed uncrushed into temperature-controlled wood or steel open vats.  The fermented must is bladder-pressed prior to a cold maceration and long vatting.  Depending on the vintage and appellation, the wines are aged between 14 and 20 months in 60-100% new French oak prior to being bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Tasting Notes: Aromatic.  Bright red strawberries, buttered popcorn.  On the palate sour, rich, red fruit.

Domaine Comtes George de Vogué Chambolle-Musigny

The characteristics of this producer were discussed in the previous post.

Tasting Notes: Elegant, restrained nose.  Smoky, red fruit, vanilla.  On the palate lean with great acidity.  A great wine for acid hounds like me.

Red 2009 Flight

2009 was a warm, dry, near-perfect growing season which yielded clean, ripe fruit.  According to Allan Meadows, "An excellent and very consistent vintage of opulence, charm, and seduction."  According to Berry Bros & Rudd, "... 2009 ranks among the very best Burgundy wine vintages of recent times."

Domaine François Lamarche Les Chaumes Premier Cru

The characteristics of this producer were discussed earlier in this post.

Tasting Notes: Vanilla and red fruit on the nose.  Lean, smooth red fruit on the palate.  Silky finish.

Domaine d'Eugénie Clos-Vougeot Grand Cru

This domaine came into being when Francois Pinault bought the estate of René Engel in the summer of 2006.  The domaine owns 7.5 ha of vineyards to include Grand Cru plots in Clos Vougeot, Grands-Échezeaux, and Échezeaux and Premier Cru and Village plots in Vosne-Romanée.  The Clos-Vougeot plot (1.36 ha) is located in the top-left portion of this property in an area called Les Marets Hauts.  Subsequent to the purchase the new owner has invested a lot of effort in restoring the vineyards to pristine condition.  The domaine has experimented with vinifying one cuvee with the stem and one without and then blending them together prior to bottling. They have had success with this approach and will be implementing it more broadly in the future.

Tasting Notes: Spicy dark fruit on the nose and rich on the palate.  Ron described it as a beautiful wine with soaring spice, great length and balanced.

Domaine Méo-Camuzet Échezeaux Grand Cru

Prior to 1985 the domaine operated a sharecropper-like arrangement where the vines were tended by farmers and the owners compensated for the farmers' use of the land.  Beginning in 1985 the domaine began making wine under its own label and, since 1998, has begun taking control of vineyards as these "sharecropping" agreements expire.  Currently the domaine has 15 ha of vineyards under its control while another 13.5 ha is still controlled by farmers.  The domaine's objective is to make wines that are seductive and delicate.  Vines are farmed organically and fruit is sorted and destemmed prior to a pre-fermentation maceration.  Fermentation occurs in temperature-controlled vats over an 18-day period with pump-overs twice daily.  The wines are aged in 60-70% new oak if from a Premier Cru vineyard and in 100% new oak if Grand Cru.

Tasting Notes: Sour red cherries and baking spices on the nose.  Red and black fruits on the palate along with an earthy minerality.  Balanced with a long finish.

Domaine Méo-Camuzet Les Chaumes Premier Cru

The characteristics of this producer were discussed earlier in this post.

Tasting Notes: Dark cherries and oak on the nose.  Red and black fruit plus spice on the palate.  Good acidity level and mouthfeel.

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This was a very good event. Stacole brought some excellent wines to the table and combined that with an excellent team and a bunch of folks who enjoy drinking high-end wines together.  I showed my appreciation for the effort, and for the wines, by placing orders for the Bonnes Mares, the Clos de Beze,  the Clos Vougeot, and the La Grande Rue.

At then conclusion of the tasting Ron and I pulled out bottles of Bordeaux, Burgundies, and Rhones to accompany our long-delayed lunch.

© Wine -- Mise en abyme

Stacole Fine Wines Burgundy Tasting at Capital Grille Orlando: Part I

On April 24th, Stacole Fine Wines, a member of the Vintner Group, hosted a Burgundy tasting at the Capital Grille in Orlando where attendees were treated to a lineup of multiple years of that stellar region's offerings.

Attendees at the event were primarily collectors and area retailers.  Stacole enriched the event by bringing in a powerhouse group to support its effort: Laura DiPasquale MS, GM and VP Country Vintners; Brian Koziol MS, Sales Director, Stacole; Tom Johnson, District Manager, Stacole; and Carter Nixon, Regional Sales Representative.

I have previously recommended that the buyer of Burgundian wines be familiar with three quality elements prior to making acquisition decisions: the AOC, the producer, and the vintage.  I have provided information on the Burgundy region and Côte de Nuit AOCs in prior posts and will provide the same (in this post) for the specific producers and vintages included in the tasting.

White 2008 Flight

With one exception, this was a red wine tasting.  The white on offer was the Domaine Roulot 2008 Meursault.  The 2008 whites from the Côte de Beaune had been well received.  Berry Bros & Rudd found the wines to be "intriguing" due to their richness of fruit combined with excellent acidity.  The Burgundy Report lauded the wines' "minerality and aidity with good ripeness" and found them "hard to resist."

Doamine Roulot is managed by Jean-Marc Roulot who replaced a line of caretaker winemakers who had bridged the gap between his father's death and the initiation of his stewardship.  The estate tends 13.5 hectares of vines organically to produce a "bright, chiseled" style of Meursault.

Tasting notes: This wine was nutty on the nose along with icy apple pear and a slightly toasted oak.  It had a bright acidity which burst on the palate and accompanied notes of citrus and citrus rind.  The limestone presence was reflected in a coating minerality.

Red 2006 Flight

The 2006 Côte de Nuit vintage was good but not great.  According to Clive Coates "while overall the red 2006s are charming, fruity, and soft-centered ..." they lack the "depth, vigor, and concentration of the 2002 ..."

Domaine Michel Magnien Clos de La Roche Grand Cru

Domaine Michel Magnien sources grapes from family-owned Grand Cru, Premier Cru, and Village vineyards sited from Gevrey-Chambertin south to Chambolle-Musigny.  The grapes for the Grand Cru wines are destalked prior to being placed uncrushed into tanks for six to eight days of pre-fermentation maceration, followed by alcoholic fermentation, and then 10 days of post-fermentation maceration.  Malolactic fermentation is initiated after the wine has spent 8 months in barrel.  The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered

Tasting notes: On the nose cinnamon and red berries.  On the palate soft, round, fleshy, almost flabby with a medium finish.

Maison Frédéric Magnien Latricieres-Chambertin Grand Cru

Frédéric Magnien is the son of Michel Magnien and, in addition to helping his father out at Domaine Magnien, he runs his own negocé which he founded in 1995.  Frédéric has been described in the Wine Advocate as having a "commitment to quality winemaking" and an "experimental, inquisitive mind."  He works closely with wine growers in the region to ensure that he obtains optimum-maturity, old-vine grapes from the best appellations.  His business has grown from 21 barrels annually to over 1000 today. 

Tasting notes: On the nose red fruit, vanilla, baking spices, petrol.  Petrol on palate along with hot pepper.  A good finish.  Ron ( my regular tasting partner; a Burgundy collector of note and the driving force behind the event) felt that this wine had more structure than the Clos de La Roche and had staying power.

Domaine Trapet Chambertin Grand Cru

The Trapet family has been producing wine in Gevrey-Chambertin for seven generations and currently owns 13 hectares of Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards which yield 5000 cases of wine annually.  The Chambertin Grand Cru holdings total 1.9 ha spread over three parcels.  The winemaker is Jean-Louis Trapet, a disciple of biodynamic farming.  Grapes are harvested by hand and sorted twice before natural-yeast fermentation ( 30% whole cluster, 70% destemmed) in open-top vats.  The wines are aged in 35%-75% new oak for 15-18 months before being bottled.

Tasting notes: Notes of green prunes and a little vanilla but, for the most part, ungiving.  On the palate lean, watered down red fruit.  Flat.

Red 2007 Flight

In 2007 Burgundy vignerons experienced a fairly miserable summer sandwiched in between a fine April and a cool, dry autumn.  According to Clive Coates MW, 2007 is the "least-good" of the Burgundy red wine vintages between 2005 and 2009 because there were few wines "with the depth, concentration and intensity one would like to find ..."

Domaine Comte Georges de Vogué Bonnes Mares Grand Cru

This 20th-generation domaine is among the very best Burgundy houses and seeks to maintain that standing by blending tradition and modernity.  The estate owns 7.5 ha of Le Musigny (80% of the available vineyard), 2.75 ha of Bonnes Mares, and 1.8 ha of Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru vineyards.  The estate manager is Jean-Luc Pepin and the winemaker is Fancois Millet. This team is focused on maximizing fruit flavors as evidenced by crop thinning practices and a resistance to having more than 30-40% of the Grand Cru aged in oak.

Tasting notes: Red fruit and baking spices on the nose with a slight phenolic note.  Rich and creamy on the palate.  Great weight with a long finish.  This was an excellent wine.

Maison Frédéric Magnien Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru

The capabilities of this house were detailed in the Red 2006 Flight discussion.

Tasting notes: On the nose smoke, red berries, vanilla, and rich shoe polish.  Soy on the palate with a long, lean finish.  Low acidity.  Ron detected some earth and agreed with the richnesss assessment.  He felt that the acid level was appropriate.

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With a few exceptions, the wines tasted to this point had all showed pretty well (keeping in mind that red Burgundy is designed to be drunk at a more advanced age than was the case for this particular tasting).  I will cover the remainder of the tasting in a subsequent post.


© Wine -- Mise en abyme

Burgundy: Côte de Nuit AOCs

The Côte de Nuit, one of the premier Burgundy wine growing sub-regions, is home to the most expensive incarnations of Pinot Noir wines and vineyard properties in the world.  This post covers the sub-region and its associated appellations.

The Côte de Nuit, along with its sister region Côte de Beaune, comprise the fabled Côte-d'Or (golden hills), a limestone escarpment which runs north to south for 45 kilometers (27 miles) from Dijon to Santennay.  The climate for these two sub-regions is as has been described for traditional Burgundy. The soil is predominantly rendzina (a dark, grayish-brown, hummus-rich soil) and brown limestone with a covering of loose rock debris and instances of a gravel-red silt mix that has slipped down the slopes and on to marl or limestone bases.  The arable land in the Côte is very shallow but the vine roots will exploit cracks in the limestone to travel to great depths in search of nutrients and water.

Within the Côte-d'Or, Côte de Nuit (named for its largest town, Nuit-Saint-Georges) occupies the narrow strip of slopes that are to be found between Dijon and Corgoloin.  The area is 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) wide at its widest point and shrinks to between 200 and 300 meters in some places.  Lying as it does along the 47th parallel (a similar latitude as Minnesota), the sub-region struggles to consistently reward viticulturists with adequately ripened Pinot Noir.

The wines from Côte de Nuit are classified according to the location of the vines from which they were sourced.  The best vineyards in the region are situated mid-slope on the hills where the best soils, exposure, and drainage are to be found.  These mid-slope regions are home to 24 of the Burgundy Grand Cru climats.

The plots which have the the most issues with drainage and ripening are located at the lowest elevation on the slopes and it is from those plots that we derive the wines that are assigned Bourgogne regional labels.  In addition, wines can be produced in Côte de Nuit and be labeled Bourgogne Aligoté, Bourgogne Passe-tout-grains, and Crémant de Bourgogne.  In addition, the elevated slopes of 4 communes have been assigned an appellation (Bourgogne Hautes-Côte de Nuit) for the production of reds, whites, and rosés which have been tested and certified as meeting stipulated requirements.  In the case of the Côte de Nuit Village appellation, if the grapes are sourced from a single climat, the name of that climat is permitted to appear on the label.

Village and Premier Cru wines are sourced from grapes that are grown above and below the mid-slope position that is reserved for the Grand Crus. In the case of a Village appellation, the name of the origin village must appear on the label and if a Premier Cru, the name of the village must be followed by the words Premier Cru plus the name of the source climat.  It should be noted that the amount of land devoted to the production of white wines decline as we move up the quality level with only one Grand Cru choosing to allocate precious land to the production of Chardonnay grapes.

Knowing Burgundy requires knowing much more than the AOCs: it also requires knowledge of the really good producers -- those who will produce at the top of the class year in and year out -- and knowledge of the vintages.  And even then you are not guaranteed to have a great bottle of wine when you open it.  When you do open a great bottle of Burgundy, however, it is a wine-drinking experience second to none.  So here are the names of selected producers that should be a starting point for any journey into the wines of the Côte de Nuit:

• Faiveley
• Jayer-Gilles
• Leroy
• Meo Camuzet
• J. Grivet
• DRC
• Henry Jayer
• Rene Engel
• Mungeard-Mugneret
• Mugneret
• Jean Gros
• Jadot
• Drouhin
• Roumier
• J. Grivot
• Comte de Vogue
• Dujac
• Mugnier
• Ponsot

I will now shift my attention to reporting on the Stacole Burgundy tasting which I attended last week.


© Wine -- Mise en abyme

The Burgundy wine region (sans Beaujolais): An overview

I attended two Burgundy wine tastings (The Wine Room and Stacole Fine Wines) during the course of the past week and will be posting notes on one or both in the near future.  I will use this post to provide additional background on the Burgundy wine region, a process which was initiated with my earlier posts on the Beaujolais sub-region and Beaujolais AOCs.

The Burgundy wine region runs in a north-south direction for 360 kilometers (225 miles) from 100 kilometers south of Paris to the city of Lyon.  The major included sub-regions are illustrated in the map below.

Source: terroir-france.com

The scope of this particular post is Burgundy to the exclusion of Beaujolais; thus, Chablis to Maconnais.

The climate in Burgundy has been described as "oceanic with some continental tendencies." Oceanic due to frequent rains (rainiest in the autumn and less so in the summer) and semi-continental in that (i) its monthly thermal amplitude (difference between mean temperature of the hottest and coldest months of the year) is among the highest in France; (ii) the winters are cold (average 1.6ºC) with frequent snowfalls; and (iii) warm summers (average 19.6ºC) with occasional violent thunderstorms. The short summers make berry ripening a challenge and, coupled with the possibility of rain, frost, or hail around harvest, provide lots of opportunity for vintage variation.

There is a "certain unity of geology and soil" within Burgundy but the geological origin and physical and chemical composition of that soil can vary between and even within vineyards.  Overall, the top layers are sedimentary soils (clay, marl, limestone) laid down during the Jurassic age (150 million years ago) overlaying bedrock (granite, lava, gneiss, schist) which dates to 250 million years ago.

The essence of Burgundy, and the rationale for the primacy of its wines, is terroir and, within that overarching framework, "climats," which are strictly defined vineyard plots with centuries-old names and quality attributions.  According to the official Burgundy website, "The basis of terroir is above all the sub-soil and soil from which the vine draws its nutrients and which create a secret alchemy of colors, aromas and flavors."

Writing in Decanter.com on June 10, 2010, Benjamin Lewin MW reminded us that in the same year (1855) that the Medoc Classification was introduced, Jules Lavalle published a topographic map of the Côte d'Or which placed each vineyard into one of four classes.  The key difference between the two classification schemes at the time that they were introduced? Bordeaux was classified by price while Burgundy was classified by terroir.

And it was the Lavalle classification scheme that was the basis for mapping the Côte d'Or into 400 appellations when the appellation system was introduced in 1938.  The climat classification scheme used in Burgundy today is shown in the table below with the Regional appellations at the lowest end of the quality pyramid and Grand Crus at the top .  Regional wines can be made from grapes grown anywhere within the region; local (Village) wines must be made from grapes grown in the named village; Premier Cru wines must be made from grapes grown in so-designated vineyards; and Grand Cru wines must be made from grapes grown in Grand Cru vineyards.

Mr. Lewin points out that given the difficulty with berry ripening in Burgundy, higher quality ratings would be assigned to plots where the vines ripened reliably even in poor vintages.  And, in his view, the ripening advantage would accrue to the vineyards in the middle of slope.  As shown in the figure below, all of the Grand Cru vineyards are located center-slope in Burgundy.

Source: burgundy-wines.fr

The distribution of the vineyards by Burgundy sub-region is shown in the following table, as is the distribution of wine production.

Non-Beaujolais Burgundy is largely a two-style, two-grape region.  As shown in the table below, 60% of the region's wine production is white and 32% red.

White wine in the region is made primarily from the Chardonnay grape and the red from Pinot Noir.  The Chardonnay vines flourish on clayey marl-limestone soils and there is a strong correlation between clay content and wine aroma levels.  Chardonnay wines from Burgundy are considered the best representation of the grape and are noted for complexity of aroma and flavor, fruit depth, structure, minerality, and crisp acidity.  The sub-regions that gain the most acclaim for their Chardonnay include: Côte de Beaune, Côte Chalonnaise, Macconnais, and Chablis.  Whites from Chardonnay can be produced in each of the previously described AOCs.

The Pinot Noir grape thrives in well-drained marl and limestone soils with the style being light and elegant or powerful depending on the limestone content and climat location.  The clays at the bottom of the slope produce powerful but less elegant wines.  Grand Crus from Pinot Noir are concentrated in the Côte de Nuit and are characterized as "profound and subtle" with great harmony existing between body, bouquet, and color.  Burgundy reds are structured on acidity and are lighter-bodied and tangy in youth but develop a huge bouquet of aromas and flavors, as well as minerality, with age.  Reds from Pinot Noir can be produced in each of the previously described AOCs.

There are some Burgundy wines which do not conform to the two-grape, two-style rule.  First, Gamay, which is the mainstay off the Beaujolais sub-region, is also prominent in Macconnais.  Aligoté is a grape that is used primarily to make a regional white wine called Bourgogne Aligoté as well as being one of the potential ingredients of Burgundy sparkling wine (Crémant).  In Auxerrois, 109 hectares of Sauvignon and Grey Sauvignon are planted to produce a light, fruity wine for the Saint-Bris AOC and César is combined with Pinot Noir to produce a wine called Irancy.  Finally, Tressot and César are grown in small quantities and used in production of White Burgundy ordinaire AOC in the Yonne district.

Passetoutgrains is a blended red wine made from 1/3 Pinot Pinot Noir, < 2/3 Gamay, and a mix of Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Gris not in excess of 15% of the blend.  The constituent grapes are generally co-fermented and the wines are intended for early drinking.

A sparkling wine -- Crémant -- is produced in the Burgundy region using the Methodé Champenoise.  This wine style was granted an appellation in 1975 and is produced under the following requirements:

• Le crémant de Bourgogne blanc -- minimum 30% Pinot Noir and/or Chardonnay
• Le crémant de Bourgogne blanc -- Chardonnay and Aligoté
• Le crémant de Bourgogne blanc de noirs -- Pinot Noir
• Le crémant de Bourgogne rosé -- Pinot Noir or Pinot Noir and minimal amounts of Gamay.

Thanks to Napolean's inheritance laws, Burgundy growers number in the thousands and own, on average, 5 hectares (12.5 acres) spread over nine different appellations.  Given this lack of economy of scale many growers are unable to make their own wine.  They instead sell either grapes or juice to négociants who then make, store, and distribute the wine to the broader market place.  Given the combination of the AOC complexity, a history of vintage variability, the number of producers, and the existence of négociants, selecting wines from this region can be a daunting task.  Know your producers.


© Wine -- Mise en abyme

Blog name change to align with content

Mise en abyme (pronunciation miz-ohn a-beem) is, according to the Literary Encyclopedia, "A French term derived from the heraldic device of inserting a small shield within a larger shield bearing the same device ..."  In later English literature the term was used to refer to a literary technique called "a play-within-a-play" (as in Shakespeare's Hamlet) while in classic art it was used to describe a technique wherein ever-smaller copies of an original painting were placed in the center of the painting giving an impression of movement ever deeper into an abyss.  In common modern usage the term is used to indicate a story within a story.  And such is the use as intended in the new name of my blog.

The previous blog name and picture, while having provided yeoman service over the years, did not fully capture and convey what was occuring in the body of the posts.  The blog has truly come to represent my continuing quest for knowledge and understanding of all aspects of all things wine and a commitment to share those learnings once I become comfortable with them.  It also reflects my focus on placing things in order and providing frameworks within which that order can be imposed, analyzed, and disseminated.  But, more importantly, because of a need to provide background to any story that I am telling, the main thrust has always been packaged within a broader context.  In my book, a story within a story.  So if I am reporting on a wine tasting, I want to tell that story within the context of the broader wine region.  I will write a post on the region first, and then follow up with a post on the actual tasting.  The series I am doing now about wine quality has taken me down to components and elements and will provide fodder for this blog well into the future.

The concept is illustrated in the figure below where a story about wine odor is being told within the context of the story of the overall winemaking process which is itself being told within the context of the the winemaking process as it is practiced across the globe.

The photograph underlying the new blog name fully captures and communicates the conception of a story within a story and is doubly significant in that it has a bottle of wine (Smith-Haut Lafitte) as part of the representation.  This picture was taken at Chateau Smith-Haut Lafitte on the first day of the Decanter d'Yquem Weekend.  As I had related the story at the time:

Madame Cathiard took us into a sub-basement with access secured through an electrically operated door which opened upwards from the floor. As we descended into the room she indicated that it was named Le Paradis -- the paradise. On the left-hand side of the room was a table on which lay every size of wine that is produced at the château, proceeding from smallest to largest. On the right side of the room was a line of bottles of the château's red wines arranged from oldest to most recent. At the front of the room was a glass cube containing a wine bottle which, through the influence of imbedded mirrors, appeared to be the entrance to a hole stretching to infinity.

If you currently read and enjoy this blog, you will find that nothing has changed except the "above-the-fold" material.  So there is no reason to change a good habit.  If you are new to the blog, where have you been all this time?  If you have any thoughts on this change, or suggestions as to how I can improve the content or context of this blog, I will be receptive to same.

© Wine -- Mise en abyme

Odor as an indicator of wine quality: Mapping the sources

Most of the stock photographs of wine notables that you encounter show them holding a glass of wine to their noses.  This is no accident as wine odor is one of the key markers of wine quality and they want to be shown either assessing the quality of the wine or wallowing in the enjoyment that accrues to a person who is fortunate enough to be sniffing a high-quality wine.  According to Vincent Ferreira (Laboratory for Flavor Analysis and Enology, University of Zaragoza), "The most relevant notes of great wines are caused by complex associations of aroma compounds playing different notes ..."  And it is these compounds and their notes that will be the focus of a series of posts (beginning with this one on the sources) on odor as an indicator of wine quality.  The arrow on the figure below shows our current position on the Wine Quality Assessment Framework.

We begin with some baseline definitions.  An odor is a volatile compound, or combination of volatile compounds, that stimulates the olfactory organ to register a smell.  The odor threshold of a compound is the lowest concentration at which its smell can be detected.  The perception threshold is the minimum detectable concentration for 50% of a group of tasters while the recognition threshold is the minimum concentration of that compound necessary for identification of the odor.

If we relate the foregoing to wine, quality wine can be characterized as having complex associations of aroma compounds that exceed the odor threshold; and, for a subset of tasters, exceed the recognition threshold.  But what are the sources of these odor?  The figure below shows the sources of wine odors.

As the figure shows, wine odors are a sum of the odors from the grape, maceration, yeasts, alcoholic fermentation, malolactic fermentation, and aging.  The Wine Institute characterizes these odors as shown in the table below.

Over the course of the next few posts I will detail the elements that ensure the production of quality wine grapes, characterize the sources of wine odor, and, finally, show how the interaction of these odor compounds aid in the perception of a quality wine.


© Wine -- The View From Orlando

The origin of wine: The when and where

In my previous post on the origin of wine I noted the scientific consensus that the vitis vinifera that is used in the production of 99.9% of the world's wines is a domesticated version of vitis vinifera silvestris, a wild Eurasian grape that still survives today in a number of Eurasian and North African habitats.  The modern wild grape is dioecious, must be cross-pollinated by insects, and fruit is only produced by the female plant. Somewhere in our distant past, and at a specific geographic location, someone(s) took this wild grapevine into cultivation and selected for plants that were hermaphroditic (self-pollination by wind; fruit production by every flower) and bore larger, juicer, and tastier fruit with fewer seeds.  The questions to be answered are: when and where did this domestication occur?

Doctor McGovern (Ancient Wine) states that while it cannot be ruled out that Paleolithic man did not have some contact with wine -- the Paleolithic hypothesis -- humans living in that era did not have the technology or lifestyle to be credible actors in the domestication of silvestris and vinification of its juice.  He instead points to the Neolithic era as being the most likely answer to the when question.  Writing in Penn Museum's Expedition (The Beginnings of Winemaking and Vinification in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, 39(1), 1997), McGovern et al., propose the Neolithic as being the first period in our annals when all of the requisite conditions for domestication  of the wild grapevine were present simultaneously:

• Humans were living in year-round communities
• The above was brought about partly as a result of the domestication of many different plants and animals
• People living in this era had invented bread and beer, both requiring fermentation with yeast
• Pottery vessels (which would become important for the storage and transportation of wine) first appeared around 6000 BC.

A number of archaeological findings serve to cement the Neolitihic as the period within which the grapevine was domesticated and wine made and also allow us to narrow down the answer to the where question:

• Pips from vitis vinifera vinifera dating to the 6th millennium BC were found at Chokh in the Dagestan Mountains of the northeast Caucusus (McGovern et al.)
• Pips from vitis vinifera vinifera dating to between the 6th and 4th millennium BC were found at Shomutepe and Shulaveri in Transcaucasia (McGovern et al., This et al.)
• Discovery of "wine jars" dating to between 5400 and 5000 BC at Hajji Firuz Tepe in Iran.

Hajji Firuz Teppe, an ancient town located in the northern Zagos Mountains of Iran, was the subject of an archaeological excavation in 1968 at which five 2.5 gallon (9 liter) jars were found imbedded in an earthen floor along a wall of a Neolithic mud brick building.  Two of these jars had a yellowish residue on the bottom which, after being subjected to infrared liquid chromatography and wet chemical analysis, proved to be a combination of calcium tartrate and terebinth tree resin.  Tartaric acid in the amounts found can only be associated with grapes and the amount of wine that would be housed in the five containers would be much more than required for a single family's use.  Clay stoppers that perfectly fit the openings at the top of the clay jars were found in close proximity to the jars and was assumed to have been used to prevent the contents from turning to vinegar.  These factors led the archaeologists to tag this site as a wine-production facility -- playfully called "Chateau" Hajji Feruz by Dr. McGovern.  As wines in Greece even today are resinated, the assumption is that resin was added to Neolithic wines either as a preservative or for medicinal purposes.

According to This et al., "Uncertainty remains about the place and period of the original domestication ... but archaeological and historical evidence suggest that premier domestication occurred in the Near East."  McGovern takes the position of the Near East as the locale and the Neolithic as the period.  Doctor Jose Vouillamez sees Transcaucasia as the consensus center of origin for botanists, archaeologists, and historians but avers that recent findings in genetics, archaeology, and linguistics point to southeast Turkey between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as the point of origin.  The genetic aspect of this claim does not seem to be supported by the Sean Myles et al., study (Genetic structure and domestication history of the grape, PNAS 2010) which only goes as far as claiming a Near East origin for vitis vinifera subspecies vinifera.

From its origins in the Near East, vinification had diffused to Egypt and Lower Mesopotamia by 3500 - 3000 BC and to Crete by 2200 BC.  From Crete it migrated to Rome and its colonies and then up the major rivers to Europe and from there to the New World.

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