In 1867, archaeologists unearthed a glass vessel — about the size of a modern magnum bottle — from a Roman tomb near the Rhine River. Inside was liquid wine, still intact. Preserved under a protective layer of olive oil and sealed with wax, this 1,600-year-old wine became the oldest known liquid wine… at least for a while.
Miraculously, it even survived the heavy bombings of World War II. Today, it sits in the Palatinate Historical Museum in Speyer, Germany — an object of awe and curiosity.
But that long-held title now belongs to another.
In 2019, near the Spanish city of Seville, archaeologists discovered another Roman tomb — this one holding a cremation urn that, astonishingly, still contained liquid. Scientific tests later revealed that this wine was 300 years older than its German counterpart. That puts it squarely in the time of Jesus of Nazareth.
The discovery of the tomb was purely accidental. It was uncovered during renovation work carried out to align the building with the city’s zoning plan — and what began as a routine adjustment quickly turned into a scientific excavation, thanks to the intervention of archaeologists from the city museum who moved in to protect the site.
The tomb contained six urns — made of limestone, sandstone, and glass. Three belonged to men, three to women. Two even bore names: Hispanae and Senicio.
The glass urn, placed inside a lead container, held the cremated remains of a 45-year-old man — and a gold ring bearing the image of Janus, the Roman god of transitions.
To analyze the liquid, the excavation team turned to organic chemist José Rafael Ruiz Arrebola. Using methods like chromatography-mass spectrometry (don’t worry, I can’t pronounce it either), he decoded the composition.
Though the pH level was a bit high for wine (7.5), centuries of degradation accounted for it. Yet seven polyphenols, familiar antioxidant compounds, and a mineral signature akin to modern sherry wines confirmed:
Yes, this was wine.
Still, one question lingered: red or white?
The answer came from a single compound — syringic acid.
When red wine ages and its pigments break down, syringic acid remains. In this case, it didn’t. That absence pointed toward a white wine.
Once deemed safe to drink, Arrebola suggested it could be tasted — if one was brave enough.
“It’s a bit cloudy,” he said, “because of the cremated remains… but filtered carefully, it’s drinkable.” Then he added, “But to be honest, I wouldn’t want to be the first to try it.”
And so, by accident, a new chapter in the history of wine was written.
Who knows what else lies beneath? Ten years ago, no one imagined finding liquid wine from the Roman Empire. Perhaps somewhere — in a clay jar buried deep in the soil — another forgotten wine waits to be found.
