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
Mondeuse blanche Mondeuse blanche Mondeuse blanche is a variety of white grape almost exclusively found in and around the Savoy (Savoie) wine region in France. With just of plantations in 1999, it leads a dwindling existence and is used primarily in the VDQS wine Bugey and the AOC Vin de Savoie. DNA typing has established that Mondeuse blanche is the mother of the Syrah grape, with Dureza being the father. Despite their similarity in names, Mondeuse blanche is not closely related to Mondeuse noire, or Mondeuse gris. Grapes just called Mondeuse are usually Mondeuse noire rather than Mondeuse blanche. In the 20th