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
Argentine wine Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Chardonnay and other international varieties are becoming more widely planted, but some varieties are cultivated characteristically in certain areas. In November 2010, the Argentine government declared wine as Argentina's national liquor. Viticulture was introduced to Argentina during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and later again by Christian missionaries. In 1556 father Juan Cedrón established the first vineyard in Argentina when cuttings from the Chilean Central Valley were brought to what is now the San Juan and Mendoza wine region, which firmly established viticulture in Argentina. Ampelographers suspect that one of these cuttings brought the ancestor grape