Greece and Eastern Europe

In its infancy, wine was produced in regions where the vine grew wild. From its origins in the Near East cultivation of the grapevine spread to the Kingdom of Egypt, and, sometime around 2500 BCE, trade brought the vine to the Minoan Bronze Age civilization of Crete.

Despite its latitude, Crete’s moderate climate proved suitable for the vine, and in viticulture the Minoans surpassed all of their contemporaries. (They also developed indoor plumbing—clearly a civilization ahead of the times.) The art passed to their successors, the Mycenaeans, to other islands in the Aegean, and finally on the mainland of Greece. The Greeks spread cultivation of the vine throughout much of Europe. The first vineyards in France were in Massalia, a Greek colony at modern-day Marseilles, and Southern Italy’s modern varieties Greco and Aglianico may be Greek in origin. The Greeks took viticulture northward as well, to the banks of the Danube and the coastline of the Black Sea. Ultimately, the Greeks were not only responsible for spreading the vine geographically, but also for democratizing its consumption. In ancient Egypt wine was regarded as the sweat of the sun god Ra; the Greeks certainly drank wine in religious and ceremonious capacities, but they also drank socially. As wine consumption in Greece expanded to new social classes, so did the need for additional vineyards. The Romans carried the Greeks’ vines even further, but the debt of many modern-day wine regions of Europe truly extends back to ancient Greece.

While preeminent in the ancient world, Greek wines languished until a late 20th century surge in interest and quality. Retsina, an aromatized wine flavored with Aleppo pine resin, hung like an albatross and is still a layman’s only reference point for the country’s vinous products.