Almost certainly the wine was made from grapes. Perhaps someone out collecting them fell and squashed a quantity, the juice ran free and soon began to ferment of its own accord. However harsh and rough the taste, it was no doubt of interest to the picker who probably repeated the exercise!

Some 2,000 years later it would seem that the grape vine was being cultivated for making wine. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the vine was the very first plant to be cultivated. Archaeologists have discovered mounds of grape pips among the foundations of early settlements, and with their scientific equipment have dated the pips to around 6000 BC.

The ancient Persian civilisation may well have been sufficiently sophisticated for the leaders at least, to have drunk wine with their food. The situation may well have been similar in China, for wine has certainly been made there for thousands of years. At this time Britain was just becoming an island detached from Europe!

Wine was well known to the first Egyptian civilisation since drawings and carvings exist from this period depicting the vine, the grape and the making of wine.

At the time of the building of the Great Pyramids 2,500 years BC, it was recorded that the leaders of the people drank wine and the slave workers a kind of beer. Other wines were known too, including palm wine, which may have been made from the milky sap of the tree rather than from the fruits.

From Egypt the craft of making wine spread to the early Greek civilisation. Our word 'wine', comes not from the Latin vinum but from the Greek oinos which in turn came from the ancient Arabic language. Our words 'oenologist' - one who studies wine - and 'oenophile' - one who loves wine - come from the same source.

Perhaps because it was man's first cultivated plant, perhaps because of the euphoria that the drinking of wine induces, there has always been an association between wine and religion.

The Greeks no doubt took over the Persian practice of pouring a libation to the gods when the harvest was gathered.

The Greeks called their god of agriculture Dionysius and those who lived by working on the land, worshipped him and offered sacrifices for a good harvest. The harvest was an occasion for drinking, feasting and merrymaking then just as it was in the Middle Ages in England and still is today in agricultural countries.

From the Aegean the vine was taken to Italy where it flourished. The Romans worshipped Bacchus as their god of wine.

That they did so to good effect is evidenced by the word 'bacchanalian' which we still use to describe a drinking party that has become something of an orgy.