Reddish-brown liquid found in untouched 2,000-year-old Roman tomb is a local, sherry-like wine
The oldest wine ever to have been discovered in its original liquid form is reddish-brown and, quite conceivably, full-bodied. Reddish-brown because of the chemical reactions that have taken place in the 2,000 years since the white wine was poured into a funeral urn in southern Spain – and potentially full-bodied because the urn also contained, among other things, the cremated bones of a Roman man.
Analysis by experts at the University of Córdoba has established that the ancient tawny liquid inside the urn – which was found in a rare, untouched Roman tomb that was accidentally discovered in the Andalucían town of Carmona five years ago – is a local, sherry-like wine.
Prior to the discovery, which is reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, the oldest wine preserved in a liquid state was the Speyer wine bottle, which was excavated from a Roman tomb near the German city of Speyer in 1867 and dated to about AD 325.
The Spanish urn was recovered in 2019 after a family having some work done on their house in Carmona stumbled across a sunken tomb on their property.
How’d they fortify it? I thought they didn’t do distillation until at least the 10th century and it was too warm to do fractional freezing.
You got downvoted but it’s a valid question. They don’t state that the wine was fortified, however, but the comparison to sherry does suggest that.
In my reading is only compared to sherry because it’s from the same region.
Oh I had downvoted myself. I do that that for fun sometimes. It often results in a lot more downvotes and is funny.
Aha I see.
Downvoted :p