The origins of wine(4)

Elsewhere, researchers negotiated with vineyard owners to take samples from their precious vines.

Thousands of these were then sent to Dr Chen`s laboratory, where each had its DNA extracted, sequenced and fed into a supercomputer for analysis.

This compared the sequences for each sample, looking for variations that would suggest evolutionary steps and, hence, familial links.

The results revealed that present-day grape varieties can be split into ten groups: four of wild Vitis sylvestris and six of cultivated Vitis vinifera.

All arose from a proto-vine which split, some 200,000-400,000 years ago, into two varieties, Syl-E, which flourished in the Caucasus and Levant, and Syl-W, which grew across western Europe.

What happened next recalls another aspect of the biblical story: climate-change-induced selection.

In this case it was not a flood, but a cooling. As temperatures declined through the last glacial period, and conditions became less hospitable, varieties in different regions evolved different mechanisms for survival.