World’s oldest wine discovered in southern Spain

The world’s oldest wine was discovered in a Roman cemetery in Spain, and one thing is clear: it certainly had body.

For almost 2,000 years, this wine has been kept in a glass urn, along with a man’s ashes and a gold ring, in an ancient mausoleum in Carmona, a small town in southern Andalusia. According to a new analysis.

This study A team led by scientists from the University of Cordoba published the findings this week in the archaeological science journal Reports.

“At first we were very surprised to find preserved liquid in one of the funerary urns,” Juan Manuel Roman, one of the report’s authors, said in a university news release.

He said the tomb’s “state of preservation was exceptional, completely intact and tightly sealed”, adding that this “allowed the wine to remain in its natural state after all these centuries”.

Although the liquid was reddish, chemical analysis by the team determined that “the wine contained in the jar was white,” the report said.

While the team was unable to pinpoint the wine’s origins, the report added that “the mineral composition of the reddish liquid is comparable to that of modern sherry wines from Jerez, a city about 75 miles south of Carmona.”

The report said the oldest known wine preserved in liquid form was thought to have been found in a Speyer wine bottle excavated from a Roman tomb near the German city of Speyer and made between 325 and 350 A.D. “This hypothesis has never been confirmed by chemical analysis,” it added.

Spanish urns were sealed in tombs from around the 1st century.

The vases were recovered in 2019 after a family discovered the submerged tomb while renovating their home, and made headlines last year when a team revealed that a crystal bottle found inside one of the vases contained 2,000-year-old patchouli-scented perfume.

According to a new statement from the University of Cordoba, the tomb in which the wine was found “was actually a circular mausoleum, probably home to a wealthy family.”

It contained eight burial niches, six of which contained urns, two of which were inscribed with the names of the deceased: “Hispanae” and “Senicio.”

“Given that wine was highly symbolic and closely associated with burial rites in the ancient Roman world, and that it carried religious significance, it is not surprising that vessels that may have originally contained wine have been found amongst funerary furnishings,” the report said.

Along with wine, rings, perfumes and other items were meant to accompany the deceased on their journey to the afterlife.

“In ancient Rome, as in other societies, death had special meaning and people wanted to be remembered in some way to live on,” a university news release said.

“It’s no coincidence that the man’s remains were soaked in wine,” he added. “Women in ancient Rome were forbidden to drink wine for a long time. Wine was a man’s drink.”