TUTANKAMON PREFERED WHITE WINE

On the previous article, “in vino veritas” , I went over info about wine in the classic world and dug up my predilection for history, which has always accompanied me.

Some days ago I came across an article about the job of a research equip in Barcelona University, directed by Rosa Lamuela Raventós. We know its first conclusions since 2004 and it was recently published in the British magazine New Scientist.

It told about the contents of six wine amphorae found inside Tutankamon’s tomb (a XVIII dynasty pharaoh, 1346-1337 B.C., short reign, not much merits, who gave the power back to polytheistic priests, but whose name has achieved great popularization since the year 1922 when British Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon found his tomb; it wasn’t desecrated and this meant a great achievement for Egyptology).

In 2004 it was made known that one of the amphorae had remains of siringic acid, derived from an antocianidine, malvidine, that can be found in the peel of red grapes, that is responsible for it’s color.

But there’s another outcome, all six amphorae contained tartaric acid, characteristic of grapes of any kind, so the logical deduction falls on its own weight, five out of six amphorae contained white wine, the merry eighteen year old pharaoh had a preference for white wine to cool down the sands of the desert.

Wine was a part of the pharaoh’s baggage to make his existence in the afterlife more bearable.

Well, this piece of work was the spark that I was missing to cheer myself up and take a tour through history of wine and mankind, I hope you share my interest and enjoy the series of articles that have begun today with the topic of wine and history.

We must start this walk admitting (even being wine our unique drink) that on the beginning of sedentary life of man, beer battled and even won wine in spiritual and social aspects.

The starting point that can be stated, without a doubt, for the use of fermented drinks situates us in the middle East somewhere around 5500 B.C., and two revolutions were needed, a first one, with the start of agriculture and the sedentarism in the Neolithic that modified the way of life, and later on a second alimentary one, that brought the use of terracotta vases with it, which allowed the making and preservation of fermented drinks. These drinks were not for daily use, they were reserved for festivities and of course rituals, these two being bond together many times. We will go on, unless someone carries a popular protest against it, flying over the ephemeral existence of man and wine in this planet.

Luís Menchén - Feb 2006