When did China start planting grapes?
Do you know about this? When did the Chinese start planting grapes and an introduction to when China began planting grapes, let's find out in detail with the editor's explanation following the brackets.
“Grape wine in a luminous cup, the desire to drink is urging by the sound of the pipa on horseback” — These two lines of poetry by the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Han can evoke the most beautiful imagination of wine, and also bear witness that grapes were already among the most popular fruits on Chinese soil as early as the Tang Dynasty. Crisp, translucent, sweet and sour, grapes can be eaten fresh, made into wine, juice, or dried fruit, and for thousands of years, Chinese people have been deeply attracted to them.
So when did the Chinese start enjoying the delicious taste of grapes, and when did they begin planting grapes? Today, let's explore the “official history” of grapes.
Primary concepts: Wild, Domesticated, and Cultivated
Before discussing the history of grape cultivation, it is first necessary to clarify a concept: what is cultivation?
Is picking a grape, peeling off the skin, eating the flesh, and burying the seeds in the ground, watering and fertilizing until it sprouts, climbs, blooms, and bears fruit considered cultivation?
This can only be called “planting,” but lacks “cultivation” — this kind of planting does not have significant meaning. Grapes that fall to the ground or are eaten by animals can eventually be naturally “planted” and grow — the grapes that are grown are still wild, lacking the necessary domestication process.
Mentioning domestication, people often think only of animals, knowing the difference between wildlife and domestic animals, while the domestication of plants is often overlooked.
So-called domestication means replacing natural evolution with artificial selection to make animals and plants mutate according to human needs, resulting in the most optimized varieties.
For example, from wild boar to domestic pig, the temperament changes from temperamental to docile, easier to fatten and increase in weight, meeting the needs for pork. Plants are the same; when the five grains were first discovered, they provided limited food and had a mediocre taste, but after thousands of years of artificial evolution, we now have “sea rice”.
When did China start planting grapes?
The domestication of fruit trees is particularly important, as people's needs for fruit trees are richer and more diverse. Not only is high yield required, but also appearance, color, aroma, and taste are very demanding, and some literati and scholars may have “ornamental” needs, which require continuous domestication and improvement, modifying plant varieties — this process is the real cultivation.
Grapes are an import? Yes, and no.
The reason for clarifying the concepts of wild and domesticated is that grapes in China also have the distinction between native and Western Regions. Many people know that grapes are an “import,” but in fact, China has many native “wild grapes,” and the imports are only the grape varieties domesticated early in the Western Regions.
According to archaeological findings, as early as the Neolithic era, Chinese people began to eat “grapes”.
1. The Yuantan Rock Shelter site in Dao County, Hunan, 8000 years BC.
2. The Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan, 7000 years BC.
3. The Zhuangqiao Tombs site in Zhejiang, 3000 years BC.
4. The Longshan site in Shandong, 2500 years BC.