By Heidi Noroozy
For
years I’ve been telling friends this story (usually over a nice glass of red
wine): Gaspard de Stérimberg was a thirteenth-century crusader who took a wrong
turn on his way to the Holy Land. He ended up
in Shiraz, the
Persian city known for its blooming gardens and lyrical poets—and for its wine.
Gaspard took such a liking to the local vintage that he slipped a few grapevine
cuttings into his saddlebags before returning to his home in France. There,
he planted the cuttings, turned the mature fruit into a full-bodied wine, and
named his new vintage after the city of its origin. A few centuries later, the Shiraz grapes went wandering again and put down roots in Australia.
Nice
story, right? Too bad it’s not true.
In
1998, Dr. Carol Meredith, a researcher with the University of California at
Davis, tested the DNA of grapevines and determined that the Shiraz variety is
native to France and did not originate in Persia at all. Other details of the story
don’t hold up under scrutiny, either. Chevalier Gaspard was a real knight, but
there’s no evidence that he ever left France,
let alone traveled to Jerusalem or Shiraz (which was never
the target of a crusade anyway). Our valiant knight had joined the Albigensian
Crusade against the Cathar heretics in the French region of Languedoc.
In
another version of the story, the Greeks brought the Shiraz
grape to France in 600 BC
and planted the vines in their colony of Massilia (present-day Marseilles). Centuries
later, Gaspard de Stérimberg encountered the vintage in this region on his way
home from the crusades and transplanted some cuttings to his Rhône vineyards.
There, he recovered from terrible wounds sustained in the fighting and lived
out his days as a hermit—and presumably a gentleman vintner.
This
story is more believable, for although Marseilles
isn’t in the Languedoc
region, it’s not far from it and the grapes could have easily migrated over the
course of nearly two millennia. And the city of Shiraz has been part of a major wine-growing
region for thousands of years—until the Islamic Republic banned alcohol in the
1980s. But the stickler this time is this: the wine grapes grown in Shiraz were white, while the present-day Shiraz
grapes of Australia and France (where
they’re called Syrah) are red.
So
what is the true story? I doubt anyone will ever sort out these wrinkles in
history. But the Shiraz mystery aside, Persia is
likely the place where wine originated. Archaeologists uncovered the earliest
evidence of winemaking in the residue clinging to 7,000-year-old pottery shards
at Hajji Firuz Tepe, an excavation site in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern
Iran.
Iranians
have another story about the origins of wine: The legendary King Jamshid was
fond of grapes. He filled his castle cellars with the fruit so that it could be
brought to his table whenever he felt a craving coming on. One day, he sent two
servants to fetch a basket of grapes, and when they failed to return, he went
to see what was taking so long. He found the men collapsed on the floor,
overcome by the fumes from a barrel of bruised and fermenting grapes. The king
decided the grapes had turned poisonous and warned everyone to avoid them.
Later,
one of Jamshid’s mistresses was feeling sad and neglected and decided to kill
herself by drinking the liquid left by the poisoned grapes. But instead of
dying, the woman soon felt elated and climbed the cellar steps singing and
dancing. The king realized that this miraculous juice had the power to turn
despair into joy. It’s probably a good thing he never asked her how she felt
the next morning when the hangover hit, or perhaps we wouldn’t have wine today.
This
story brings us back to Shiraz because Jamshid
is believed to have lived in the site that later became Persepolis,
the palace of the Achaemenid rulers, which lies just an hour’s drive from
present-day Shiraz.
Even today, Iranians refer to Persepolis
as “Takht-e Jamshid,” which means the “Throne of Jamshid.”
Science
may have proven that the Shiraz grape has a
French accent rather than a Persian one and that winemaking originated in the Zagros Mountains and not in King Jamshid’s cellar, but I
still prefer the legends. I’ll happily lift a glass to old Gaspard, the French hermit,
as I picture him wandering among his vines, or to King Jamshid on his throne at
Persepolis, sipping a white Shiraz.
Salamati!
What a lovely legend. I suspect that fermented grapes have origins in many cultures, but I love the idea that someone thought it poisonous at first, only to discover it's power--and taste.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Heidi. Shiraz is my favorite red wine--I didn't even know there was a white variety!
ReplyDeleteBeth