Egypt: not just beer
during a banquet, Nubmehy exclaims, "give me eighteen cups of wine [...] can't you see I want to get drunk!"
In dynastic Egypt beer was not the only alcoholic beverage drunk. Many iconographic documents from tomb wall paintings, papyri and statues, attest the widespread and important culture of drinking wine.
The appearance of wine in the Nile's valley, for the initial use of kings and priests is attested, approximately, at the turn of the fourth and third millennia B.C.E., where real wine depots arose near temples.
The most common fruit used to produce Egyptian wine was dates, but there was also pomegranate wine and also wine made from grapes. The guiding fossil, for archaeological investigation, is the numerous ceramic finds and in particular the jars and transport amphorae; wine was stored in sealed jars with marked places of origin and ownership of the product. Thus a geographical map of wine in Ancient Egypt could be obtained.
The wines thus appear to have come, for the most part, from the northern part of the Nile Delta, while the most valuable were those from the areas of Tanis and the Lake Mareotis.
The classification of the drink was according to origin, quality and color.
Wine was used, since the Old Kingdom, for religious rites. Initially used for offerings to the dead, was later present at the table of rich persons, well aware of the side effects that the excess of this drink caused. The feeling of intoxication, was associated with an erotic tension that often appears in some paintings.
From old papyrus we learn the methods of pressing the fruit by means of presses used after an initial fruit's crushing; to obtain juice from the skins and what was left of the grapes, the Egyptians used to use cloth bags fitted with ropes that were spun around poles.
