In Israel, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a huge 1,500 year old winery. Hundreds of amphorae in four warehouses and five large wine presses bear witness to the fact that wine was once pressed here on an industrial scale. With a production capacity of around two million liters of wine per year, it was the largest known winery of the Byzantine era to date, as the researchers report.
Winemaking has a long history in the Middle East. As early as the Bronze Age Canaan, grapes were pressed and wine was pressed in this region, as is shown by finds from extensive wine cellars from around 1700 BC in the ruins of Tel Kabri in northern Israel. Historical records also show that the light white wine from Israel enjoyed particular obesity in antiquity and was a real export hit: It was exported from the port cities of Gaza and Ashkelon to almost the entire Mediterranean region.
Two million liters of wine a year
Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have now discovered a huge production facility for this wine during excavations near the city of Yavna in southern Israel: They came across the remains of an approximately 1500-year-old winery on an almost industrial scale. The facility comprised five wine presses, each 225 square meters in size. Around the area where the grapes were trampled on with bare feet and squeezed, there were masonry basins in which the grape juice was fermented. This was followed by two octagonal containers in which the finished wine was collected, as the archaeologists report.
“We were surprised to discover such a large, complex plant here, in which wine was produced in commercial quantities,” explain the excavation directors Elie Hadad, Liat Nadav-Ziv, and Jon Seligman. “The capacity of these wine presses suggests that around two million liters of wine were produced and brought onto the market here every year – and that entirely by hand.” According to archaeologists, it is the largest known winery of the Byzantine era. The design of the shell-shaped rim basin also suggests that the owners of this winery had considerable wealth.
(Video: Israel Antiquities Authority)
Warehouses with hundreds of amphorae
The ruins of four warehouses, in which thousands of fragments of amphorae and some still intact vessels were found, testify to the enormous extent of wine production in Yavne in late antiquity. The wine was stored and matured in these elongated amphorae. The special shape of the vessels was also a trademark of this quality wine that was known throughout the Mediterranean, as the scientists explain. Furnaces for burning these special amphoras were also part of the facility that has now been excavated.
“So far, other wineries have been discovered in the southern coastal plain of the country. But now we seem to have found the main production site for this prestigious wine, ”says Seligman. “From here, large quantities of this wine were transported to the ports and from there shipped to the entire Mediterranean region.”
Source: Israel Antiquities Authority