Created: Tuesday, 04 June 2013 09:05

Earliest French Wine PressPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—Scrapings taken from a limestone pressing platform at the Mediterranean site of Lattara have shown that wine was made there around 400 B.C. It had been thought that the pressing platform was used to make olive oil. “It’s the earliest evidence we have of winemaking by the Gauls,” said Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania. Additional evidence includes grape skins and seeds that were unearthed near the pressing platform. “The combination of botanical and chemical evidence makes a pretty tight argument that wine was being produced at Lattara,” McGovern added. Older traces of imported wine was found in Etruscan amphora at the site.