Chemical Analysis Identifies Earliest-Known Wine in France

News June 4, 2013

(Michael Py, copyright l'Unité de Fouilles et de Recherches Archéologiques de Lattes)
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Earliest French Wine Press
(Michael Py, copyright l'Unité de Fouilles et de Recherches Archéologiques de Lattes)

PHILADELPHIA, 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.

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