In Carmona, a town in southwestern Spain, scientists have made an astonishing discovery: the world’s oldest wine. This remarkable find was made by researchers at the University of Córdoba and was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The wine, which has been preserved since the 1st century AD, is a 2,000-year-old white wine that contained a man’s ashes.
The Roman tomb, initially discovered in 2019, contained the remains of five individuals: two men and two women whose names remain unknown. One of the men’s skeletal remains was submerged in liquid inside a glass funerary urn as part of an ancient ritual. The liquid, which has acquired a reddish tone over time, is the oldest wine ever discovered.
Led by Juan Manuel Románm, the municipal archaeologist of the Carmona City Council, a team from the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Córdoba identified this ancient wine as the oldest discovered so far. Their finding surpasses the Speyer wine bottle discovered in 1867, which dates back to the 4th century AD.
The well-preserved and sealed condition of the tomb allowed the wine to maintain its natural state. Románm expressed his surprise at finding liquid preserved in one of the funerary urns. The researchers noted that covering
