Who Invented Wine?

Caroline & Sheryl investigate, after Willamette Women in Wine gathering

Caroline discusses sustainable farming practices at Willamette Women in Wine conference. Photo by Andrea Lonas.

What we hadn’t appreciated was that wine may have been an invention of women. It has been made for thousands of years, with historians recently tracing the first drinking of wine back some 13,000 years. Many believe that women were the gatherers of berries, grapes and fruits, and that it was most likely a woman who left grape juices in a pottery container in a cool dark corner.  Weeks later, she found a fermented drink with a nice aroma and pleasant effect.  That became the birth of wine.

Pottery remnant of a wine vessel dating to 6,000 BC from the Tblisi area in country of Georgia. Georgian National Museum.

Other legends point to women engaging long ago in wine. The Babylonian tale of Gilgamesh portrays a woman in the palace harem of King Jamshid who suffered from migraine headaches. The king one day found that a jar with his favorite grapes was foaming and smelled strangely, so he had it set aside as unfit for consumption.  When the woman, still suffering terribly from pain, heard this, she went to drink the concoction as poison and end her life. Instead, she tasted the drink and liked it.  Moreover, her headache vanished and she became joyful.  When she told King Jamshid, he tasted the “wine” as well and then ordered more to be made and shared with the whole court. From then on, several of the gods of wine in ancient cultures were female.

Demeter was a goddess of agriculture and guaranteed the fertility of the earth. She protected both farming and vegetation. Archaeological Museum, Milan via Mark Cartwright.

We like to think we’re following that tradition. Sheryl and Caroline are deeply engaged in our business, and the family matriarch is 91-year-old Jane Kristof. Even our Chief Security Officer, Connie the dog, is female – but the gophers certainly don’t think she’s some soft pushover. She eats their lunch. She also eats them for lunch.

And our cider maker, Christine Walter, is the founder of Bauman’s Cider and a leader in America’s cider-making community. She has been making Kristof Farms cider and helping us successfully enter the cider world.

In their talk, Sheryl and Caroline spoke of the decision to repurpose part of our family farm – which for 80 years had been in fruit orchards, mostly pie cherries – to grow cider apples and grapes. This wasn’t always smooth. At enormous cost, we built a high deer fence around the perimeter to keep out deer and elk and protect our apples and grapes; when our impregnable deer fence was completed, we discovered that we had locked some deer inside!

We’ve long believed that women hold up half the sky, to quote the title of the book that Sheryl and Nick wrote years ago. And we’re happy to uphold that in our business as well as our books! Click here to order Kristof Farms cider. Try a 3-pack. Or perhaps a case, which will get you cut-rate shipping!

Reply to this email with any questions. We hope you enjoy!! <3