Ancient Greece and wine importance. Records inscribed on tablets in Linear B include details of wine, vineyards and wine merchants, as well as an early allusion to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Greeks embedded the arrival of winemaking culture in the mythologies of Dionysus and the cultural hero Aristaeus. Early remnants of amphoras show that the Mycenaeans actively traded wine throughout the ancient world in places such as Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Sicily and southern Italy. As the Greek city-states established colonies throughout the Mediterranean, the settlers brought grapevines with them and were active in cultivating the wild vines they encountered. Sicily and southern
History of wine name for the color "blue," the Greeks would simply refer to red wine's color. The earliest reference to a named wine is from the 7th-century BC lyrical poet Alcman, who praises "Dénthis", a wine from the western foothills of Mount Taygetus in Messenia, as "anthosmías" ("flowery-scented"). Chian was credited as the first red wine, although it was known to the Greeks as "black wine". Coan was mixed with sea water and famously salty; Pramnian or Lesbian wine was a famous export as well. Aristotle mentions Lemnian wine, which was probably the same as the modern-day Lemnió varietal, a red wine