The world’s oldest wine has been unearthed from a Spanish urn, but caution is advised before considering a taste.
Discovered within a funerary urn alongside the cremated remains of a man, this 2,000-year-old white wine was found during archaeological investigations of a Roman tomb in Carmona, southern Spain, back in 2009.
As part of ancient Roman funerary rituals, men’s skeletal remains were often placed in a liquid within glass funerary urns. Over time, this liquid has developed a reddish tint and has been remarkably preserved since the first century AD. The Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cordoba, under the leadership of Professor José Rafael Ruiz Arrebola, in collaboration with the City of Carmona, has confirmed it as the oldest wine ever discovered. This discovery surpasses the Speyer wine bottle found in 1867, dating back to the fourth century AD and housed in the Historical Museum of Pfalz, Germany.
