Tut Ankh Amun: Red Red Wine Make Me Feel So Fine

[Jason Perlow]

Kink Tut Drank Red Wine

LONDON - King Tutankhamen was a red wine drinker, according to a researcher who analyzed traces of the vintage found in his tomb. Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane told reporters Wednesday at the British Museum that she made her discovery after inventing a process that gave archaeologists a tool to discover the color of ancient wine.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Tut tut, my man, hopefully not a merlot ...

[Jason Perlow]

Actually, I'm very curious as to what the actual varietals were and if they still exist.

[Gifted Gourmet]

like the original vines? Hard to tell with a few scrapings from the wine vessels and the ensuing of years, I'll bet ...

Does this finding mean we'll have to endure a special of Food Network from Marc Summers "Wines (& their mummies) Unwrapped"?

[Jason Perlow]

Here's an interesting blog entry about Egyptian wine:

All About Egyptian Wine

[Jason Perlow]

like the original vines? Hard to tell with a few scrapings from the wine vessels and the ensuing of years, I'll bet ...

Well, I doubt that the original vines still exist. It may be even the varietals themselves might not exist, simply because of interbreeding or maybe they went extinct. 3,300 years is a long, long time ago from a vinoculture perspective. Major changes in varietals and extinctions have occurred in less than 500 years.

[Gifted Gourmet]

more on Egyptian wine culture ...

According to William Younger in his book, 'Gods, Men and Wine' "It is in Egypt where we must go for our fullest knowledge of man's early and deliberate growing of wine." Plutarch said that he was told that Osiris was the first to drink wine and to teach men how to plant the vine

.

[docsconz]

From the cited article:

Patrick McGovern, an American molecular archaeologist, said he has discovered grape residue in northern

Iran that dates winemaking to 5400 B.C.

How cool is that?

[Jason Perlow]

Yep. Although I think its cool that its thought that the grapes used to make the pharonic Egyptian wines may have originated from Caanan (Israel).

[Gifted Gourmet]

More vino veritas before they invented the term ...

[Pontormo]

Dead Egyptians also drank beer.

Some of the small entombed figurines of servants and slaves called "ushebti" are carved as if engaged in beer making so the deceased may have an unlimited supply.

[Jason Perlow]

There have been a number of attempts to recreate those Egyptian beers, most notably by Pyramid Brewing and I beleive Dogfish Head (who recently recreated an ancient Chinese beer back in July and has a beer based on residue found in the tomb of King Midas).

[Pontormo]

Cool!

[Jason Perlow]

I'm not sure how accurate these brews are, though. Dogfish is a reputable company, but these guys:

http://www.pharaohs-brew.com/

250 bucks PER bottle?

[magnolia]

I attended the press conference given by Guasch et al, and it really was fascinating (I'll probably write a couple of articles about it). To address/confirm some of the points mentioned above - it's impossible to determine the varietals as we don't yet have the technology to do this using the residue. But this could change; Guasch herself helped to develop the technique that allowed her to determine that Tut drank red. The other really interesting bit is that the wines were 'labeled' - i.e. the amphorae were inscribed with the year of the reign in which the wine was 'bottled'; the 'type' of wine (there seem to be two or three, possible meaning sweet, dry, whatever); the level of quality; and other details - leading to the conclusion that it was considered important enough to identify and bear a seal.

McGovern (a Penn professor) has written a book as well - Ancient Wine: The Search for the origins of Viniculture (which I haven't yet read).

[Daniel Rogov]

I hate to be the first to remind us but there has been since the 1880's a good deal of information taken from the tombs to the effect that the first wines made in Egypt were probably not made from grapes but from a variety of fruits, those including watermelons and other melons. Indeed there seems a good chance that the first grape vines to make their way into Egypt did so via ancient Israel and that they got to ancient Israel via what is now Iran.

As to syringic acid - perhaps not the very best of tests as this acid is present not only in grapes but in a great many fruits.

[magnolia]

I hate to be the first to remind us but there has been since the 1880's a good deal of information taken from the tombs to the effect that the first wines made in Egypt were probably not made from grapes but from a variety of fruits, those including watermelons and other melons.  Indeed there seems a good chance that the first grape vines to make their way into Egypt did so via ancient Israel and that they got to ancient Israel via what is now Iran.

As to syringic acid - perhaps not the very best of tests as this acid is present not only in grapes but in a great many fruits.

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Actually that point was also discussed at the conference (and I believe in Guasch's paper, though my New Yorican Spanish isn't up to the task, unfortunately). Apparently much of the residue is thought to come from pomegranatest. But in the case of King Tut's tomb, it was concluded that the wine found there was made from grapes.

[Rebel Rose]

Dead Egyptians also drank beer.

Some of the small entombed figurines of servants and slaves called "ushebti" are carved as if engaged in beer making so the deceased may have an unlimited supply.

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Very cool. I'll have to add that to my will.