Love the Source theme of the EWBC 2012 and as suggested in EWBC 2012 Theme: Getting to the Source recent evidence points to areas of Turkey being the original source of domestic vine cultivation and possibly winemaking.

This is a great opportunity to combine the 2011 theme of storytelling with the 2012 theme: The story of wine as we know it.

As some of you know I’m an archaeologist though not working in this part of the world but rather in northern hemisphere in Sweden. I aim to make 2012 a marrige between my two mistresses: wine & archaeology.

What we today call Turkey might have be the birth place for wine production, to be frank, that really isn’t the most interesting thing, there will always be someone looking for next “oldest find” – what is interesting that in this region some of the earliest steps toward wine production took place and we’ll have the opportunity to be a part of it – to taste the resulat so far.

If that's not enough it will also be held in an exiting place, the ancient city of Izmir that has a history that spans some 3,500 years.

For me this are formidable excuses to read up on the history or rather prehistory of wine and try to build that into the experience of the 2012 EWBC – now the history of wine is much more than just a possible birth-place – if there is one such thing – it’s the traditions connected to wine, it’s the methods used to make, keep, store, export and import and of course enjopy wine. It the wines themselves and the way from that first controlled fermentaion to the the multitudes of wines we have today, the transgression from amphora’s to bag-in-boxes, how and when we drink wines, the costumes sourrondig our drinking habits etc. etc. Wine is part of our past and our present and in som a link to past generations, an experience shared through the ages.

The really cool thing with wine is – we can really give the complete heritage experience it’s still here – available – we can smell it, feel it, taste it and share that in stories, blog-posts and tweets. Join me and take this opportunity to go a little deeper, under the skin so to speak, and dig into wine history as we await the future party in the city of Izmir 2012… then lets party like it was 2012 BC …and write about it and if you do, please send me a link!

A first post on this is published here!

Magnus Reuterdahl

Aqua Vitae vinblogg (in Swedish) & Testimony of a wine junkie (in English)

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