We love some age on our bottles, and a few years in the cellar usually does the trick. But on Sunday, a report published in the Journal of Archaeological Science announced that a reddish-brown liquid found in a Roman funeral urn in 2019 was confirmed to be the oldest liquid wine ever discovered.
The urn was found in the town of Carmona in southwestern Spain when a family uncovered a sunken tomb on their property following a construction project. The homeowners immediately reached out to the local archaeological department, which was surprised to find that the site — unlike most ancient Roman tombs — hadn’t been raided or looted. Upon further excavation, archaeologists discovered eight burial niches and six urns, each made from either limestone, sandstone, lead, or glass and containing the cremated bones of different Roman men. Among the urns’ contents was a glass flask filled with roughly five liters of what experts at the University of Córdoba say is a sherry-like wine.
