There are two myths about the origins of fermentation. The first is that beer was “invented” or more precisely, discovered, by accident. The second, that wine was an accident, too. It is highly unlikely that, given the elegantly simple yet highly complex process of brewing, that beer was merely stumbled upon. The same goes for wine though it is probable that our ancestors observed how fruit juices changed when left to sort of rot in certain conditions.

Why it is unlikely that the discovery of wine was an accident is due to the discovery of grape seeds, or pips, found in abundance in parts of lower Georgia -- the one in Russia. The pips have been carbon dated and are estimated to be about 7,000 years old. What makes these pips exceptional is not only there abundance but their shape. Pips that have been gathered for cultivation differ from wild seeds in shape and in genetic information.

All modern, cultivated grapes are hermaphroditic, or posses the characteristics of both sexes. This is because our late Stone Age relatives harvested only female vines. When left to themselves there are male and female grape vines. The females bear the fruit while the males pollenate. When early man came on the scene he saved the female plants and cut down the males. Over time only those vines that were hermaphroditic were able to survive. One of the survivors of early man’s wine making experiments is called vitis vinefera which is the species from which wine grapes sprung. The people of these early eras were observant enough to single out these kinds of grapes for their high sugar  content. Without sugar, no wine.

Why fermentation was not an accident is open for argument but wine, like beer, could not have come into being without certain conditions being meet. Along with the high sugar there needs to be yeast and the grapes early men seemingly so haphazardly gathered have on their skins and in their must many types of naturally occurring yeasts. We now know that some of these naturally occurring yeasts aren’t that great for wine and can only carry fermentation so far but they probably did enough of the job to get early man where he needed to go, which, according to the earliest writings on wine, was the place of the gods.