From there the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans gradually introduced the vine to Western Europe. Viala believed that Vitis vinifera had been transported from Transcaucasia and Mesopotamia across the ancient Near East to Egypt, the Levant and Greece. This view originates with the work of Russian botanists at the end of the nineteenth century and was embraced by French viticulturists and ampelographers such as Pierre Viala in the early twentieth century. So this begs the question, how did Pinot Noir or its distant cousin find its way to France? The principle theory is the migration theory. However, what is unclear is whether vinifera was domesticated once and then the domesticated versions were disseminated far and wide across the known world, or whether an ubiquitous wild vinifera species which might have been widely distributed throughout Europe and western Asia 10,000 years or more ago was subject to multiple domestications. For instance, while the paraphernalia of prehistoric wine production has been unearthed in the shape of wine jars and drinking vessels and grape remains have been found at Neolithic sites around the Eastern Mediterranean and into the Middle East, the growing of grapes has left very few traces.Įqually, while Egyptian hieroglyphics from the third millennium give us and insight into the fact that vineyards of a kind were being planted along the course of the River Nile nearly 5,000 years ago, we have little direct written information about wine and the growing of grapes until the Greeks and the Romans began writing about the subject during the second half of the first millennium BC.ĭespite this lack of written records, it is clear that wild grapes of Vitis vinifera were first domesticated during the Neolithic Period in Transcaucasia, between the Black and Caspian Seas, where modern Turkey, Iraq, and Iran share borders. While archaeologists have been able to assemble many facts about wine fermentation and consumption five to seven thousand years ago, how grapes were first grown or produced remains unclear. ![]() ![]() In order to understand where Pinot came from, or at least attempt to, we need to go back thousands of years to query the origins of Vitis vinifera in its entirety. The Origins of Vitis Vinifera in France The Origins of Vitis Vinifera The following explores the origins and history of the world’s most prized grape. But there is no doubt that it is regarded amongst the best types of Vitis vinifera and has been for many centuries. Pinot is a notoriously difficult grape to cultivate, being prone to hazard when growing and an unpredictable aging process following fermentation. ![]() It is a complex grape, one which is used on the one hand to make the finest of Burgundies and strong New World wines, while somewhat contradictorily also being used to make some of the world’s best champagnes and sparkling wines. While Cabernets, Syrah and many other types of common wines certainly make for fine wines, Pinot has a unique position amongst grape varietals. There are few grape varietals which are more prized in the world today than Pinot Noir. The Origins of the World’s Most Prized Grape: A History of Pinot Noir Introduction: The World’s Most Prized Grape?
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