Speyer wine bottle

A Roman glass bottle found in a tomb near Speyer, Germany, dates to about 325 CE. It still holds a liquid that is thought to be wine, preserved under olive oil.

Nobody has opened it to test the contents.

Context

The bottle was found in 1867 during excavations at Speyer, in a grave containing two stone sarcophagi, one for a man and one for a woman, from the early fourth century. The city's tourism office dates the bottle to about 325 CE and describes it as the oldest preserved grape wine in the world.

It is a cylindrical vessel of greenish-yellow glass with two dolphin-shaped handles. Of the glass containers in the graves, only this one still held liquid. According to the city, the contents were wine mixed with herbs and sealed from the air under a thick layer of olive oil, which later hardened.

The bottle is held at the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer. Analysis showed that at least part of the contents was wine, but no alcohol remains, and the contents are largely a hard resinous mass with some clear sediment. Because the seal has never been broken, the claim that it is still drinkable is speculation, not a tested fact.

The 'oldest' label is for wine still contained in its original bottle, not for the oldest evidence of wine, which is much older. Experts disagree on how much of the liquid is truly wine, which is why the entry is marked as estimated.