600-year-old grape seed used to make pinot noir wine found in toilet of medieval hospital in France
CBSN
A 600-year-old grape seed discovered in the toilet of a medieval French hospital is genetically identical to the grapes still being used to make pinot noir wine, scientists said Tuesday. In:
A 600-year-old grape seed discovered in the toilet of a medieval French hospital is genetically identical to the grapes still being used to make pinot noir wine, scientists said Tuesday.
The seed reveals that people in France have been cultivating this immensely popular variety of grape since at least the 1400s, the scientists said in a new study.
It is not possible to say whether the fruit was "eaten like table grapes or whether people made wine from it at the time," study co-author Laurent Bouby told AFP.
But the research provides a link between modern France — one of the world's largest wine-producing and -consuming countries — and its distant wine-loving past.
Another study co-author, Ludovic Orlando, pointed out that the Hundred Years' War between England and France finally wrapped up in the mid-1400s.













