Grape evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia. The oldest known winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4000 BC. By the 9th century AD the city of Shiraz was known to produce some of the finest wines in the Middle East. Thus it has been proposed that Syrah red wine is named after Shiraz, a city in Persia where the grape was used to make Shirazi wine. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics record the cultivation of purple grapes, and history attests to the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians, and Romans growing purple grapes
Wine in China Wine in China Wine (Chinese: "pútáojiǔ" "grape alcohol") has a long history in China. Although long overshadowed by "huangjiu" (sometimes translated as "yellow wine") and the much stronger distilled spirit "baijiu", wine consumption has grown dramatically since the economic reforms of the 1980s. China is now numbered among the top ten global markets for wine. Ties with French producers are especially strong, and Ningxia wines have received international recognition. Use of wild grapes in production of alcoholic beverages has been attested at the Jiahu archaeological site (c. 7000 BC). In 1995, a joint Sino-USA archaeology team including archaeologists from the