the latest finds were grape wine - making .
on a small rise less than 20 miles south of tbilisi , georgia , a clutch of round , mud - brick houses rises from a green , fertile river valley .
 
6,000–5,800 bc during the early neolithic period , was obtained by applying state - of - the - art archaeological , archaeobotanical , climatic , and chemical methods to newly excavated materials from two sites in georgia in the south caucasus .
as a medicine , social lubricant , mind - altering substance , and highly valued commodity , wine became the focus of religious cults , pharmacopoeias , cuisines , economies , and society in the ancient near east .
the earthenware jars containing residual wine compounds were found in two sites south of the georgian capital , tbilisi , researchers said .
they say wine improves with age , and if that 's true , the discovery is truly sublime – and pushes back the world 's earliest evidence of modern - style viticulture by up to 1,000 years , trumping earlier finds in the zagros mountains of iran dating to around 5400–5000 bce .
wine is central to civilization as we know it in the west .
previously , the earliest evidence of wine - making was from pottery dating from about 7,000 years ago found in north - western iran .