First fermented drink
8000 BC
Georgia
Close to Tbilisi, Georgia, is a small pre historic settlement above a a green, fertile river valley. This is called Gadachrili Gora, and the Stone Age farmers who lived here 8,000 years ago were grape lovers. Their rough pottery is decorated with bunches of the fruit, and analysis of pollen from the site suggests the wooded hillsides nearby were once decked with grapevines.
In a recent paper journal PNAS, an international team of archaeologists has conclusively shown what all those grapes were for. The people living at Gadachrili Gora were the world’s earliest known vintners—producing wine on a large scale as early as 6,000 B.C., a time when prehistoric humans were still reliant on stone and bone tools.
