The Rise of Wine among Ancient Civilizations across the Mediterranean Basin

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

in attachment I send my suggestions

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The authors present an in-depth and detailed review of the history of viticulture 
and its expansion. This manuscript will contribute to the wealth of knowledge 
about the importance of wine over the years in different civilizations. The article 
presents an extensive bibliographic review by the authors, which deeply values 
the work carried out.

''Thank you for your valuable feedback''.

1) I consider that if necessary by the editor, lines 208 to 280 can be summarized, 
because the work focuses on wine. 

- Lines 208-280 removed, as the article focuses on wine.

2) Line 67: Generally Malolactic fermentation takes place after the end of 
alcoholic fermentation. 

-We removed the sentence and added a new clear statement, supported with reference (lines 68-69).

3) Line 132: It would be convenient to clarify the amount of sugar that inhibits 
respiration and mention the Crabtree effect.

- Added accordingly and supported with reference (lines 145-146).

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper provides some interesting aspects on the early evidence for vine cultivation and wine production. But the quality within the papers varies enormously. The section on yeast and types of grapes are well written. But the other sections need some rephrasing. First, the abstract and the conclusions need re-writing as there are numerous broad generalisations; statements, such as that wine production can take place anywhere as long as there are vessels for wine fermentation, are obviously wrong as you also require the right soil and climatic conditions. Also in the Conclusions, there are lots of broad generalisations about ‘civilisations’. Statements like “Where wine went, many other cultural elements, religious and social customs, medicinal recipes, eventually followed leaving a permanent trail in Western civilizations”  (ll. 746f) might be appropriate in a TV commercial for wine, but not in an academic paper: the statement is clearly wrong: the archaeological record and our ancient sources show quite clearly how diverse and divergent people’s usage of wine was, depending on their socio-cultural and religious understandings, but this shows another shortcoming of the paper: the focus on the Mediterranean coastal area, largely ignoring, for example, most of Europe.

Throughout the paper, promotional statements for wine and biased statements in favour of wine should be avoided, such as that wine helps you to turn “happier”. This is very apparent when you write in ll. 317-318 that “the surviving civilizations pushed away ‘barbaric’ beverages like beer and mead” since this reflects your personal opinion and cannot be demonstrated by the available sources; in many ancient societies, wine was not available or affordable for the subelite and subaltern strata of society. The term “cult of wine” is equally problematic as this suggests that wine was considered the object of veneration, but it was merely a means to offer libations or to get intoxicated, as in the cult of Bacchus/Dionysios, though it certainly had a symbolic meaning in some societies. Your comparison with the role of wine in Christianity is too superficial; also, when talking about Islam, more precision is required as the authors seem to primarily think about the Iberian peninsula without stating this clearly in their paper. In general, it is important to focus on the essential pieces of evidence that are important for your argument – and discuss those in depth –rather than to try to mention everything.

In lines 71-2, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is called a “wine species”, but it is a species for yeast. Line 176: why “primeval technical information” – If we are already 1000s of years after the first wine producers, one can hardly use the term “primeval”. l. 187: You may need to explain to your audience what you mean with “wine sensory features” and why this is relevant here. For the Table on p. 5 the term “Most Prominent and Tireless Writers” sounds rather odd; better to say “Author” or “ancient author”. And if ancient authors are cited, like Archilochus  and Xenophon, it would be preferable that you cite their works – which you undoubtedly checked in reliable editions of their work– rather than just to cite a modern work; please do not cite modern editions of ancient works, like “Pliny 1945”, but follow established conventions, such as Plin. nat. 14.8 or Plin. NH 14.8. And although you mention the ancient written sources in so much detail, notably the Graeco-Roman ones, you fail to inform your reader about the usefulness of these sources: do they actually provide us with precise information on viticulture and if so, what practices do they advise. Showing how similar the practices of Cato and Pliny were compared to modern methods might actually be useful for your argument regarding modern wine producers.

Your Timeline in Fig. 1 is wrong and therefore your periods in Table 2 are highly problematic: “Ancient Greece”, for example, only covers the 5^th and 4^th centuries in Fig. 1, but this is only the Classical period, but Ancient Greece does of course also include previous periods, like the “Dark Ages”, “Geometric”, “Archaic”, etc. In general , it is difficult to see the point of this timeline for your arguments. In Table 2, you use these ‘periods’, but this is highly problematic; among others, the beginning and the end of particular periods, like Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age, differ enormously depending where you are. The Iron Age in France, Spain and Portugal does more or less continue down to the Roman conquest and even down to the Augustan period, i.e. roughly half a millennium after the date you provide. Also, your choice of examples in the Table appear rather arbitrary. If you intend above all to show the ‘spread’ to the Iberian peninsula, which you should make clear in the title of your paper and the Introduction, then one would expect more examples from the Iberian peninsula. Your entry for “700-500 BCE” just talks about “Phoenician remains”, no mentioning about wine or vines. And between 500 and 1 BCE you have no example from Iberia at all, but instead mention sites that have long produced wine. If your paper were about the spread of wine I general, then it might be worth to mention wine production away from the Mediterranean coast.

There are lots of instances when the authors contradict themselves, notably in their ‘historical’ overview from the Near East/Levant/Armenia to the West and the Iberian peninsula – a section that could be much clearer. For example, mead is described “as the oldest beverage” with evidence dating to 7000 BCE, but then evidence from 11,700-9,700 BCE is cited for beer.. And having discussed so many examples from the eastern Mediterranean, from the Levant, Asia Minor and Egypt, the statement that one of the “earliest examples” of wine-derived liquids “in the entire Mediterranean region” come from north-east Italy and only date to the 2^nd millennium BCE, needs serious re-phrasing.

In the sentence “the collapse of the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) led to an abrupt decrease in vine 532 planting and wine trade”, everything is wrong: the structure f your sentence not only insinuates that the decline was taking 500 years, but the Roman empire also did not end in 476 CE, but it of course continued until the fall of Constantinople; also, wine production continued as we know for example from Frankish and Carolingian sources and the archaeological record, though the impact on wine production on the Iberian peninsula, notably from the Baetica, might of course be different from the rest of the empire as wine was a major monoculture in Roman Spain and required a well-functioning infrastructure and trade network.; there have been numerous recent studies on the subject that could be referred to.   

The English is generally of a rather good standard, but a few sentences need to be revised, including punctuation (e.g., no semi-colon, just a comma before “a Carthaginian writer” in l.183). Also the table on p.5 needs some re-writing. Moreover, some sentences in the paper require rephrasing as they can be misunderstood, such as the sentence “Predynastic Egypt was inhabited by migrants from the Fertile Crescent” needs to be more precise since we obviously still have ‘local’ people and those from adjacent areas in Africa. In general, it helps to avoid broad generalisations. Terms like “Cradle of Civilisation” for the Fertile Crescent are not important in this paper (l.456); and it is sufficient to mention only once that Columella was born in Spain, actually in Cadiz. But was really a “Spaniard” as you claim since his estates all seem to be located in Latium/Lazio and therefore in Italy.

Altogether a very interesting paper, but it could be improved by providing more focus: if the main aim is to follow the spread of wine from the east to the Iberian peninsula, then it might be useful to focus on this question and discuss the evidence in more detail. Alternatively, more discussion on China, India, Japan, Egypt are required to live up to the current title of the paper which talks about “Ancient Civilisations”.

Author Response

1) This paper provides some interesting aspects on the early evidence for vine cultivation and wine production. But the quality within the papers varies enormously. The section on yeast and types of grapes are well written. But the other sections need some rephrasing. First, the abstract and the conclusions need re-writing as there are numerous broad generalisations; statements, such as that wine production can take place anywhere as long as there are vessels for wine fermentation, are obviously wrong as you also require the right soil and climatic conditions. Also in the Conclusions, there are lots of broad generalisations about ‘civilisations’. Statements like “Where wine went, many other cultural elements, religious and social customs, medicinal recipes, eventually followed leaving a permanent trail in Western civilizations”  (ll. 746f) might be appropriate in a TV commercial for wine, but not in an academic paper: the statement is clearly wrong: the archaeological record and our ancient sources show quite clearly how diverse and divergent people’s usage of wine was, depending on their socio-cultural and religious understandings, but this shows another shortcoming of the paper: the focus on the Mediterranean coastal area, largely ignoring, for example, most of Europe.

• We hope and have tried to improve all sections accordingly.
• The abstract and the conclusion rephrased accordingly.
• Corrected accordingly (soil and climatic conditions: lines 18-19)

2) Throughout the paper, promotional statements for wine and biased statements in favour of wine should be avoided, such as that wine helps you to turn “happier”. This is very apparent when you write in ll. 317-318 that “the surviving civilizations pushed away ‘barbaric’ beverages like beer and mead” since this reflects your personal opinion and cannot be demonstrated by the available sources; in many ancient societies, wine was not available or affordable for the subelite and subaltern strata of society. The term “cult of wine” is equally problematic as this suggests that wine was considered the object of veneration, but it was merely a means to offer libations or to get intoxicated, as in the cult of Bacchus/Dionysios, though it certainly had a symbolic meaning in some societies. Your comparison with the role of wine in Christianity is too superficial; also, when talking about Islam, more precision is required as the authors seem to primarily think about the Iberian peninsula without stating this clearly in their paper. In general, it is important to focus on the essential pieces of evidence that are important for your argument – and discuss those in depth –rather than to try to mention everything. 

• Rephrased accordingly (line 59-60)
• Paragraph 2. The Features of Wine Among Other Fermented Beverages was removed, as the work focuses on wine.
• Corrected accordingly (line 412)
• The texts about Christianity and Islam were removed. 

3) In lines 71-2, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is called a “wine species”, but it is a species for yeast. Line 176: why “primeval technical information” – If we are already 1000s of years after the first wine producers, one can hardly use the term “primeval”. l. 187: You may need to explain to your audience what you mean with “wine sensory features” and why this is relevant here. For the Table on p. 5 the term “Most Prominent and Tireless Writers” sounds rather odd; better to say “Author” or “ancient author”. And if ancient authors are cited, like Archilochus  and Xenophon, it would be preferable that you cite their works – which you undoubtedly checked in reliable editions of their work– rather than just to cite a modern work; please do not cite modern editions of ancient works, like “Pliny 1945”, but follow established conventions, such as Plin. nat. 14.8 or Plin. NH 14.8. And although you mention the ancient written sources in so much detail, notably the Graeco-Roman ones, you fail to inform your reader about the usefulness of these sources: do they actually provide us with precise information on viticulture and if so, what practices do they advise. Showing how similar the practices of Cato and Pliny were compared to modern methods might actually be useful for your argument regarding modern wine producers.

• Corrected accordingly (line 74)
• Rephrased accordingly (line 209)
• Given an explanation about wine “wine sensory features” (line 220-221)
• Changed in accordance (Table 1, line 244)
• We hope to have cited accordingly (Table 1).
• For the viticulture practices and wine-making techniques described by Roman and Greek authors, see please line 230, supported with reference -  Harutyunyan, M.; Malfeito-Ferreira, M. Historical and Heritage Sustainability for the Revival of Ancient Wine-Making Techniques and Wine Styles. Beverages 2022, 8, 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/beverages8010010   

4) Your Timeline in Fig. 1 is wrong and therefore your periods in Table 2 are highly problematic: “Ancient Greece”, for example, only covers the 5^th and 4^th centuries in Fig. 1, but this is only the Classical period, but Ancient Greece does of course also include previous periods, like the “Dark Ages”, “Geometric”, “Archaic”, etc. In general , it is difficult to see the point of this timeline for your arguments. In Table 2, you use these ‘periods’, but this is highly problematic; among others, the beginning and the end of particular periods, like Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age, differ enormously depending where you are. The Iron Age in France, Spain and Portugal does more or less continue down to the Roman conquest and even down to the Augustan period, i.e. roughly half a millennium after the date you provide. Also, your choice of examples in the Table appear rather arbitrary. If you intend above all to show the ‘spread’ to the Iberian peninsula, which you should make clear in the title of your paper and the Introduction, then one would expect more examples from the Iberian peninsula. Your entry for “700-500 BCE” just talks about “Phoenician remains”, no mentioning about wine or vines. And between 500 and 1 BCE you have no example from Iberia at all, but instead mention sites that have long produced wine. If your paper were about the spread of wine I general, then it might be worth to mention wine production away from the Mediterranean coast.

• Figure 1 (timeline) was removed.
• Corrected accordingly (periods and data range in Table 2).
• We added several new references from Iberia (Table 2) and provided a new map.

5) There are lots of instances when the authors contradict themselves, notably in their ‘historical’ overview from the Near East/Levant/Armenia to the West and the Iberian peninsula – a section that could be much clearer. For example, mead is described “as the oldest beverage” with evidence dating to 7000 BCE, but then evidence from 11,700-9,700 BCE is cited for beer.. And having discussed so many examples from the eastern Mediterranean, from the Levant, Asia Minor and Egypt, the statement that one of the “earliest examples” of wine-derived liquids “in the entire Mediterranean region” come from north-east Italy and only date to the 2^nd millennium BCE, needs serious re-phrasing.

• Paragraph 2. The Features of Wine Among Other Fermented Beverages was removed.
• 2^nd millennium BCE - Rephrased accordingly (lines 387-392).

6) In the sentence “the collapse of the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) led to an abrupt decrease in vine 532 planting and wine trade”, everything is wrong: the structure f your sentence not only insinuates that the decline was taking 500 years, but the Roman empire also did not end in 476 CE, but it of course continued until the fall of Constantinople; also, wine production continued as we know for example from Frankish and Carolingian sources and the archaeological record, though the impact on wine production on the Iberian peninsula, notably from the Baetica, might of course be different from the rest of the empire as wine was a major monoculture in Roman Spain and required a well-functioning infrastructure and trade network.; there have been numerous recent studies on the subject that could be referred to.   

-Removed accordingly. 

7) The English is generally of a rather good standard, but a few sentences need to be revised, including punctuation (e.g., no semi-colon, just a comma before “a Carthaginian writer” in l.183). Also the table on p.5 needs some re-writing. Moreover, some sentences in the paper require rephrasing as they can be misunderstood, such as the sentence “Predynastic Egypt was inhabited by migrants from the Fertile Crescent” needs to be more precise since we obviously still have ‘local’ people and those from adjacent areas in Africa. In general, it helps to avoid broad generalisations. Terms like “Cradle of Civilisation” for the Fertile Crescent are not important in this paper (l.456); and it is sufficient to mention only once that Columella was born in Spain, actually in Cadiz. But was really a “Spaniard” as you claim since his estates all seem to be located in Latium/Lazio and therefore in Italy.

• Corrected accordingly (line 216).
• The sentence is rephrased accordingly (lines 355-359).
• Removed accordingly (lines 382 and 651). 

We are much grateful for your suggestions and comments. Thank you. 

Reviewer 3 Report

There are a few minor changes that are factual in nature that need to be changed.  Correct punctuation has to be attended to, and major items have been marked on the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

"Thank you for your time and corrections. We really appreciate it''.

1) All punctuation marks have been corrected.

- The Middle East should always be written in capital letters.

2) All awkward words or sentences have been rephrased, reworded or deleted, i.e, corrected lines - 56, 58-60, 74, 324-325, 377-380, 395, 420, 426, 438-440, 448, 536-540, 618, 629-632, 673.

3) The explanation of the “SSC” (“Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe Culture”) acronym is mentioned in line 277 (once).  

4) Paragraph 2. The Features of Wine Among Other Fermented Beverages was removed, as the work focuses on wine. 

5) Texts - The collapse of the Roman Empire; Christianity and Islam (6th-century A.D.) were removed. 

Reviewer 4 Report

see the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The review “ The Rise of Wine Among Ancient Civilizations” is well written and leads the reader on an interesting trial across the history of viticulture and winemaking from ancient times to the present day. For me the paper is suitable for the publication and I suggest a minor revision to clarify some points:

"Thank you for recognizing our hard work''. 

1) I suggest to delete the section 2 “The Features of Wine Among Other 
Fermented Beverages” that is not related with the review, because the topic is 
focused on wine among ancient civilization and it might confuse the reader. The 
part relating to wine (line 281) could be moved to the next paragraph (3).

-Removed accordingly the full paragraph.

2) I suggest to insert the references at line 354: 
- All three references have been added:

Capece et al. (2013) - inserted at lines 132-135. 

Hamon et al. (2016) and Nishiaki et al. (2015) - line 278. 

3) - Please check the references section according the journal’s guidelines.

- Formatted according to the journal’s guidelines.