For a long time it was believed that the Romans laid the foundation of winemaking on the Iberian Peninsula, bringing the culture of the grapevine there along with their conquests. A new study of ancient DNA from grape seeds refutes this view and moves the beginning of cultivation back three thousand years — to Phoenician settlers.
An international team of scientists from the University of Valencia, the Institute of Viticulture and Enology and other institutions analysed 28 archaeological seeds from Spain and Sardinia. The earliest domesticated specimens from south-western Spain, dated to around 1000 BCE, carry genetic traits of eastern Mediterranean varieties. These data coincide with archaeological evidence of the arrival of the Phoenicians, who founded Gadir (present-day Cádiz) at approximately the same time.
The vines that were brought over quickly interbred with local wild grapes. Already in the Iron Age, new lineages took shape that became the basis for many traditional Iberian varieties. Chloroplast DNA, which is transmitted through the maternal line, helped trace these family connections through the centuries.
The study, published in Current Biology, shows that by 2500 years ago a distinct Iberian grape group already existed on the peninsula. Some lineages have survived to this day: the hebén variety has been cultivated clonally for at least 1100 years, and medieval seeds from Valencia are genetically close to the modern pasa valenciana.
Commercial winemaking in southern and eastern Iberia flourished already by the end of the eighth century BCE — five centuries before the arrival of the Romans. The Phoenicians did not merely bring vines, but also stimulated their adaptation to new conditions through hybridisation with local plants.
Thus, the history of wine in Spain emerges as a history of early cultural exchange, rapid local adaptation and remarkable continuity of varieties that still grow in Iberian vineyards.
