The cultivation of the vine began around 11,000 years ago independently in the Middle East and in the Caucasus region, according to international research that has reconstructed the history of viticulture from the analysis of the genomes of 3,525 grape varieties.
The results show that “domestication occurred simultaneously [in the two regions] to produce table and wine vines,” the authors write in Science, where they are publishing their findings today. Likewise, it demonstrates “the role of viticulture in the formation of Neolithic agricultural societies”.
The researchers argue that grapes were first grown to eat and later varieties were developed to produce wine. Although they have not been able to establish an exact date for the first wines, varieties adapted to winemaking were already being cultivated in the Caucasus and southern Europe 8,000 years ago, and possibly in North Africa some 10,000 years ago.
The work, led by the Yunnan Agricultural University (China) and in which Spanish researchers have participated, has been based on analyzing 1,022 varieties of wild vine and 2,503 cultivated varieties from all over Eurasia and North Africa. The results show that the current vines are heirs of natural selection during the last ice age and of cultural selection along the great migratory routes after the origin of agriculture.
During the ice age, which lasted from 115,000 years to 11,700 years ago, wild vines became segregated between two separately evolved populations, one in Europe and the other in Western Asia.
At the end of the ice age, at the same time that agriculture was born in the region, communities in the Middle East and the Caucasus began to cultivate vines of the West Asian variety.
Cultivations from the Middle East spread to southern Europe through what is now Turkey and reached Iberia, where they were crossed with native wild varieties 7,740 years ago. This allowed them to adapt to local conditions and become more suitable for wine production, the researchers say.
“The results indicate that the origin of wine in Western Europe is associated with cross-fertilization between local wild populations and the domesticated grapes from the Near East,” says Rosa Arroyo-García, co-author of the study, from the National Institute for Agricultural Research and Technology. and Food (INIA) of the CSIC in Madrid
Crops from the Middle East also spread west into Africa, northeast into the Caucasus, and east into Asia. The Asian route followed the same trajectory and approximately the same chronology as the expansion of wheat, barley, and millet.
The crops that emerged from the Caucasus, for their part, spread to Central Europe, although they had a more limited route.
The results offer “a sharp picture of the evolutionary history of the grapevine, reflecting key events in the history of global climate and human migrations,” the researchers conclude in Science. In Europe, genomic analyzes of grape varieties “reflect the role of viticulture in the formation of sedentary societies.”
The research is “a considerable step forward in understanding the evolution of the grape and human migrations”, says geneticist Xavier Estivill, who applies his knowledge of genomics to the production of wine at the Celler Gritelles de Cornudella de Montsant, in the county of the Priorat.
Estivill, who has not participated in the research, points out that “more than 50 million changes have been identified in the genome of the 3,500 grape varieties analysed, which makes it possible to differentiate them and see how they have evolved.” Many of these variations in the genome are related to flavor, color, productivity, and resistance to adverse environmental conditions.
This “large amount of genomic information will allow us in the future to select traits that interest us to respond to market demands and new environmental needs,” says Rosa Arroyo-García.
Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated in the title that grapevine cultivation started in East Asia, instead of West Asia as correctly reported in the text.