Archéopages, 47, 2020, p. 12-21
Anne-Françoise Cherel, Dominique Frère
Chemical analyses of organic content, using grape biomarkers and fermentation biomarkers, allow us to identify the presence of wine (or its derivative, vinegar) within different categories of Iron Age Armorican ceramics. The essential question is the origin of this wine, given that the first wine amphorae only arrived in Brittany in the 2nd century BC. Was it a Mediterranean wine imported in perishable containers or a locally produced wine? While the hypothesis of wine produced in protohistoric Brittany seems, at first glance, incongruous in light of ancient literary sources and the climatic conditions of the peninsula, several factors allow, indeed demand, that we open the debate. On the one hand, vineyards existed in various parts of Brittany, at least from the Middle Ages onward, and on the other hand, for the protohistoric period, the presence of wild vines is firmly attested by archaeobotanical data. Fermented beverages produced during the Iron Age in temperate Europe were undoubtedly not limited to beer and mead. The absence of viticulture and winemaking did not preclude the occasional and opportunistic use of wild vine berries.
