A 2600 year-old wine 'factory' unearthed in Lebanon 🇱🇧 This is the oldest-known winery in the country and it helps us understand the Phoenicians' role in wine innovation. As we all know, part of the appeal of drinking wine is the history; not just the vintage of the bottle, but also partaking in a tradition of enjoying fermented grapes that has endured for thousands of years. Thanks to this intermingling of wine and humankind, archeologists continue to make discoveries that add to our understanding of both. This recent find sheds new light on winemaking by the Phoenicians. Large numbers of seeds show grapes were brought to this wine press from nearby vineyards and crushed by treading feet in a large basin of durable plaster that could hold about 1,200 gallons of raw juice. The resulting “must” was collected in a large vat and stored in distinctive pottery jars known as amphorae for fermenting, aging, and transport. The Phoenicians didn’t invent wine—evidence of it from about 8,000 years ago has been found in the country of Georgia—but they spread winemaking throughout the ancient Mediterranean, along with olive oil and innovations such as the alphabet and glass. #archaeohistories