How was a two-thousand-year-old wine discovered and identified in Spain?

Some scientific media, including the journal Scientific American, recently published a report on the discovery of the oldest wine in history that has remained in liquid form. Scientists discovered and identified this wine in a two-thousand-year-old tomb in Spain. The date of this tomb goes back a thousand years before Khayyam wrote his remarkable quatrains around Nishapur, where he famously said, "Khayyam, if you are intoxicated with wine, be happy / If you sit with a beautiful face, be happy / Since the end of the world's affairs is non-existence / As if there is no existence; while you exist, be happy." According to historical accounts, in the first century AD, a traditional burial ceremony was held in this tomb located in the midst of the ancient Roman Empire, which is now near the city of Carmona in Spain, where six people were buried. One of the buried individuals was named Hispana and another Seniso, while the names of the other four (two men and two women) have been lost to the sands of time. The organizers of this ceremony, to ease the journey of the deceased, placed various items in the tomb according to the customs of that era, in a tomb designed like a crypt. After perhaps invoking their names with special language and prayers for immortality, they closed the tomb doors and returned to their daily lives. The merciless passage of time led to the burial and all their contemporaries being forgotten until fate caused this tomb to emerge from the repository of history in 2019. The tomb was rediscovered in 2019 during construction work in an area where the remains of this ancient cemetery are now located, and workers encountered the remains of a historical artifact. Archaeologists dispatched to the site realized that what had been found was a sealed tomb dating back to the first century AD, two thousand years ago. Initial investigations and excavations indicated that within this tomb, designed in the common style of its time, eight niches were installed, and on each of them, a ceremonial item was placed alongside the ashes of the deceased, including a container that seemed to contain perfume and still had residues and sediment, emitting a pleasant fragrance. In one of these niches, there was a pottery jar (marked with number eight in the image below), and inside the pottery jar, a glass container filled with a dark liquid. It is rare for a liquid to survive in such conditions (two thousand years) and remain in liquid form. Therefore, various hypotheses existed from the beginning regarding the nature of the contents of this vessel, including the possibility that the liquid inside might be the result of some moisture infiltration. However, this hypothesis was not sufficient for José Rafael Román, the local archaeologist, to simply overlook the contents of this cup. Thus, with the help of chemical research institutes, he began to investigate the composition of this ancient liquid. The chemical analysis team eventually confirmed his initial suspicion. Examination of some chemical compounds in this solution revealed that what had endured in this jar was wine. However, the more surprising aspect of this ancient wine was its type. A special polyphenol compound in red wine causes the wine to change color, but in the analyses conducted on this liquid, no sign of this special polyphenol was found, leading researchers to conclude that what remained in this container was not only the oldest remaining wine in liquid form but also a white wine. Further research on it, particularly mineral salt analyses, suggested that this wine might have been produced from vineyards in the province of Betis, specifically from grapes used in the winemaking of "Montía Moriles" (a style of winemaking in Spain). However, the age of this ancient wine, which is not drinkable today, is not the main subject of this historical discovery. This wine container, which also contained a bone fragment from one of the deceased and a gold ring, as well as a perfume container found in this tomb, are part of the items that were buried with the deceased to ease their journey. In this specific case, the discoverers of this tomb were fortunate that the exceptional conditions of the sealed jar and the tomb itself were so excellent that the liquid managed to survive until today. Another interesting point is the clear visibility of some gender differences in this period. In this era, the remains of the deceased were cremated, and some of their bones and ashes were buried. The bone found in this wine belongs to one of the male burials, and this is not coincidental. In this specific period, wine was solely a drink for men, and contrary to the portrayal in modern films, women were not allowed to drink wine. Therefore, none of the vessels containing the remains and bones of women found in this tomb showed any signs of wine. We know nothing about the lives of Hispana and Seniso in their time, and we may never learn the story of their lives, but although, as Khayyam said, there is no hope for those deceased to rise again even after two thousand years, their names have now been immortalized thanks to a pure wine. Perhaps this wine did not serve them on their journey in the afterlife, but at least in this world, it has revived their names once again.