FRENCH WINE COMES FROM...ITALY

The French may consider themselves the world’s greatest wine experts today, but new archaeological evidence suggests they first learned how to make it from residents of what is now Italy, says Scientific American. (click below to read more)

Researchers have long known that winemaking originated in the Middle East around 8,000 years ago, but they weren’t sure how it spread westward. In a town on France’s Mediterranean coast, archaeologists recently found old pottery jars, or amphoras, that had been shipped from central Italy in around 500 B.C. Sophisticated testing found traces of wine in the amphoras, indicating that the French had first “imported’’ wine from the Etruscan civilization in Italy. Near the amphoras researchers unearthed a limestone press, which analysis showed had been used to crush grapes and make wine—a few decades after the amphoras arrived. Researchers now theorize that the French elite developed a taste for imported Italian wine and almost immediately made it their alcoholic beverage of choice, instead of their native drinks, “which were likely beers, meads, and mixed fermented beverages,” says University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern. Demand became so great that soon the French began producing their own vintages, probably with instructions from the Italians and grapevines transplanted from their vineyards.