Chapter One 



The Wines of the Ancient Orient 



The vine is a prehistoric plant. As such it is very diffi- 

 cult to determine the country of its origin. It is generally 

 maintained that the wooded regions which extend from Tur- 

 kestan and the Caucasus to the mountains of Trace are to 

 be considered the homeland of the vitis vinifera^. When 

 the dark mist that envelops the prehistoric age passes away, 

 and we find ourselves at the beginning of historic times, the 

 vitis vi?iifera occupies such an extended area, that it is impos- 

 sible to ascribe to the plant any special country as its place 

 of origin. The Classical writers mention quite a number of 

 places as having originated the vine, but this merely indicates 

 the very ancient extension of the plant in Mediterranean 

 countries, where the conditions of the soil and the climate 

 were and still are most favorable for its culture. Athen. XV, 

 6/5=' names the countries about the Red Sea as its place of 

 origin; Ach. Tat. II, 2 mentions Tyre; Hellanic. Fragm. hist, 

 gr. I, p. 6"] Egypt; Pausan. IX, 25, l Boeotia; Theopomp. Fragm. 

 hist. gr. Car. Mueller I, 328 Chios; and Hecat. I, 26 Etolia. It is 

 quite possible to think of a spontaneous growth in many re- 

 gions- in view of its wide spread in the earliest historic times. 



i) Grisebach, Die Vegetation der Erde, ], p. 323; Koppen, Geogr. Ver- 

 breitung der Holzgewachse des europdischen Russlands und des Kankasus, 1, 

 p. 97; De Candolle, Orig. des plantes cultivces, p. 153; Schrader, Tier- und 

 Pflanzengeogr , p. 27. 



2) Regardin<,' the soil favorable to the culture of vine see Theophr. 

 Caus. pi., 11, 4, 4. For references in Classical writers to wild-growing vine sec; 

 Pliny, A", h. XXIII, 13 14, Strabo XV, i, 58 and Diod. JII, 62, 4. On wild- 

 growing vine (four to five kindsj in Middle- and Northern Syria see ZDPV, 

 XI, p. 161. 



Lutz. X'iticulture and Brewinjj. I 



