Wine and Cheese Have a Really Long History

Wine and cheese pairings are so commonplace that it almost seems instinctual to pair them together. Given their almost universal paring it should come as no surprise that they Have both been around for a very long time.

According to an article in this month's Nature it appears that people may have started making cheese as early as the the 6th Millennium BC:

Notably, the discovery of potsherds pierced with small holes appear at early Neolithic sites in temperate Europe in the sixth millennium BC and have been interpreted typologically as ‘cheese-strainers

You may recall that in an issue of National Geographic last year the first winery was discovered dating back to about 4000 BC:

To test whether the vat and jars in the Armenian cave had held wine, the team chemically analyzed pottery shards—which had been radiocarbon-dated to between 4100 B.C. and 4000 B.C.—for telltale residues.

The chemical tests revealed traces of malvidin, the plant pigment largely responsible for red wine's color.

Now, you may be wondering what people paired their cheese with for 2000 years, but remember that was just the first winery -- evidence of wine making has been found as far back as the fifth millennium BC (and scientists contine to look for older examples).

Either way, both wine and cheese making were at the forefront of civilization. They both herald moving from nomadic peoples to a civilized society. Still no evidence of the first wine & cheese party, but really can that be far behind?