(Manfred Klimek / Research: Ben Siegert / Photo: Tomb of the poet Hafez / animated pic: Runwayml)
Iran and wine – this is not a footnote to history, but its beginning. Long before Bordeaux became prestigious or Burgundy knew its plots, what nature provided was already being fermented in the Zagros Mountains. Archaeological finds show that in north-western Iran, grape juice was being turned into wine in clay jars around 7,000 years ago. Persia is not a latecomer to wine culture. It is its place of origin.
And at the same time, today it is one of the countries with the strictest alcohol bans in the world.
Between these two poles lies a history that could hardly be more contradictory. In antiquity, wine in Persia was part of civilisation itself. It was a commodity, a state ration, a cultural asset. The administration of Persepolis meticulously recorded wine deliveries. Wine was order, not excess.
And it was language. In the 11th century, the poet Omar Khayyam wrote verses about wine and love that are still quoted today: “What do you preach about fasting and prayer? Instead of going to the mosque, let us enter the wine house.” In Persian poetry, wine became a metaphor for freedom, insight, ecstasy and resistance to narrow-mindedness. This poetic charge survived for centuries – even as reality changed.
The city of Shiraz, near Persepolis, was once famous for its wines. Today, “Shiraz” appears as a grape variety name on bottles from Australia. In Iran itself, the production of alcoholic beverages has been banned since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Officially, vines are now cultivated only for table grapes and raisins. But bans do not erase culture. They displace it.
For, as the newspaper Jungle World describes in an impressive report, a hidden alcohol reality exists in Iran. Homemade wine is produced in flats in Tehran – in bathrooms, using improvised equipment. “We have been making wine in our bathroom for years,” the magazine quotes one resident as saying. Grapes, sugar, a little chemistry – and above all, discretion. Parties take place behind closed doors. Neighbours warn one another when Basij militias appear in the street. A sentence such as “Hurry up, they’re here” is part of everyday life for those who take the risk.
The black market is thriving. Spirits are smuggled in, often at absurd prices. A bottle can cost 120 euros – in a country where the average income is far below that. Jungle World describes a system that many suspect could scarcely exist without the tacit tolerance of certain power structures. A double game: morality in public, market in private.
And then there are the minorities. Christians and Armenians report that they are sometimes subject to less stringent checks. Alcohol is sourced from Armenia, hidden and shared. Here too: a life in the grey zones.
A look at northern Iraq shows how relative this culture of prohibition is. In Erbil or Sulaymaniyah, so it is said, one bar follows another. Iraqi Kurdistan is referred to as the “bar of the Middle East”. Just a few hundred kilometres away, in Mosul or in the south, fundamentalist forces dominate. Alcohol is persecuted there and shops are attacked. The difference could hardly be greater.
These tensions show that alcohol policy in the Middle East is not a monolithic entity. It is political, religious, regional and shaped by power strategies. And it is profoundly symbolic.
In Iran itself, wine remains a phantom pain of the culture. One finds it in poems, in the memories of older generations, in conversations held behind closed doors. One finds it in humour. And in defiance.
There, wine is not merely a drink but a statement. Anyone who drinks is making a statement – sometimes deliberately, sometimes simply because they want to live. “Bans make people inventive,” writes Jungle World. Here, that applies in two senses: technically and culturally.
At the same time, the ban has real consequences. Time and again, people are poisoned by adulterated alcohol. There is no regulated market. Risk is privatised.
And yet the vines continue to grow. The landscapes around Shiraz and in the north of the country are still shaped by viticulture – only with a different use, as table grapes that are also exported to Turkey, where they are pressed and made into wine for the diaspora. History cannot be erased.
Iran may therefore be the most radical example of a proposition that should concern us as the wine world: wine culture is more than production and trade. It is memory, metaphor, resistance and identity.
You can close wineries. You can ban trade. You can impose penalties. But you cannot simply erase a 7,000-year-old culture.