Spain growing grapes for 3000 years

Grape cultivation may have arrived in Iberia from the eastern Mediterranean more than 3,000 years ago, with new DNA evidence supporting the long-held theory of Phoenician influence.

Researchers analysed 28 ancient grape seeds from seven archaeological sites in Iberia and Sardinia, comparing their nuclear and chloroplast DNA with modern cultivated and wild vines.

The oldest cultivated seeds, found in southern Spain, date to around 1000 BCE and carry genetic signatures associated with eastern Mediterranean grapevines. The researchers also found evidence that these imported vines began hybridising with local wild grapes as early as the ninth century BCE.

Some Roman-period grape seeds were very closely related to the earlier eastern Mediterranean vines, suggesting that these introduced vines continued to be grown in Iberia for centuries. The researchers also found evidence that a distinct Iberian grapevine population had emerged by around 2,500 years ago, probably as introduced and local vines began to mix.

Hebén, still grown today and a maternal ancestor of numerous varieties, appears to have been continuously propagated for at least 1,100 years.
The findings support the role of Phoenician settlers in introducing viticulture, which subsequently spread northwards and inland across Iberia.