Ancient Greece and wine help satisfy demand. Wine historians have theorized that the Greeks may have introduced viticulture to Spain and Portugal, but competing theories suggest that the Phoenicians probably reached those areas first. The grape clusters, vines and wine cups that adorn Greek coins from classical times bear witness to the importance of wine to the ancient Greek economy. With every major trading partner, from the Crimea, Egypt, Scythia, Etruria and beyond, the Greeks traded their knowledge of viticulture and winemaking, as well the fruits of their own production. Millions of amphora pieces bearing the unique seals of various city-states and Aegean islands
Ancient Greece and wine wine. Ancient Greeks called the cultivated vine "hemeris" (Greek: ἡμερίς), after their adjective for "tame" (Greek: ἥμερος), differentiating it from its wild form. A massive rootstock was carved into a cult image of the Great Goddess and set up on the coast of Phrygia by the Argonauts. The late "Dionysiaca" of Nonnus recounts the primitive invention of wine-pressing, credited to Dionysus, and Homer's description of the Shield of Achilles describes that part of its wrought decoration illustrating the grape harvest from a vineyard protectively surrounded by a trench and a fence; the vines stand in rows supported on stakes. He