Imagining the Oldest Vines

Panorama of hills, vineyards and snaking river

I love the thousands of rock carvings in Portugal’s remote Vale do Côa going back 25,000 years ago. A whole valley covered in them where peoples used to come together in summer to hunt and gather.


It’s easy to imagine a group of women retuning to an empty storage pot they had used a couple of weeks before to collect wild grapes, only to find they had been magically transformed into a dizzingly joy-filled liquid we now call wine.


It’s reassuring to know vines continue to produce wine there today.

Rock with horse and deer carved across the face

Vale do Coa rock carving

Rock with horse, deer and goat carved across the face

Vale do Coa rock carving