page_title: Areni-1 winery
section_title: Discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Areni-1 winery / Discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Panorama of the Areni-1 cave site along the Arpa River in southern Armenia near the town of Areni. The cave is the location of the world's oldest known winery and where the world's oldest known shoe has been found.
context_page_description: The Areni-1 winery is a 6100-year-old winery that was discovered in 2007 in the Areni-1 cave complex in the village of Areni in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia by a team of Armenian and Irish archaeologists. The excavations were carried out by Boris Gasparyan of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and Ron Pinhasi from University College Cork, and were sponsored by the Gfoeller Foundation and University College Cork. In 2008 the University of California, Los Angeles also joined the project with Gregory Areshian as co-director of the Areni Project. Since then the excavations have been sponsored by UCLA and the National Geographic Society as well. The excavations of the winery were completed in 2010.
  The winery consists of fermentation vats, a wine press, storage jars, pottery sherds, and is believed to be at least a thousand years older than the winery unearthed in Judea and Samaria in 1963, which is the second oldest currently known.
  The Areni-1 shoe was found in the same cave in 2008.
context_section_description: Excavations at the Areni-1 site began in 2007 and continued until September 2010. Armenian, American and Irish archaeologists fully unearthed a large, well-preserved 60-centimetre-deep (2-foot) vat, along with a 1-metre-long (3 ft 3 in) basin made of clay and covered with malvidin. In addition to these discoveries, grape seeds, remains of pressed grapes, prunes, walnuts, and desiccated vines were found. A number of drinking cups, found next to a set of ancient graves, were also excavated, suggesting that the site was used for funeral ceremonies and ritualistic practices. The cave was abandoned after its roof caved in, and the organic material was preserved thanks to sheep dung, which prevented fungi from destroying the remains.
  The team's full findings will be published in future.
caption: Panorama of the Areni-1 site along the Arpa River
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