This thesis presents the emergence of wine and the development of viticulture, with focus on the area of present-day Greece, from the beginnings of viticulture during the Neolithic revolution through the pre-Homeric, Archaic, and Classical periods. The grapevine (Vitis Vinifera) was first domesticated approximately 11000 years ago in the broader region of the Caucasus and the Levant. From there, the domesticated grapevine and viticulture spread northward across the Caucasus and west towards the Mediterranean through migration and trade. Viticulture likely reached the area of present-day Greece as early as the 7th millennium BCE. There, wine was produced from the fruit of native wild grapevines. Domesticated varieties reached this region no later than the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, introduced through trade networks between Egypt, the Near East and the Minoan civilization on Crete. From there, grapevines were brought to mainland Greece, either as trade goods or spoils of war, by the Mycenaean Greeks before or during the collapse of the Minoan civilization. Their perception of wine as a status symbol and object of worship was later adopted by the Dorians at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. By the beginning of the Archaic period in the 8th century BCE, the wine culture of ancient Greece began to take on its first recognizable characteristics. Over the next five centuries, up to the end of the Classical era, the ancient Greeks adapted winemaking techniques to their environment, cultivated new grape varieties, developed unique wine customs, and, alongside the Phoenicians, spread the vine throughout the Mediterranean through colonization and trade.
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