NEWBERG, Ore. — For a limited time, a piece of world and wine history is on display in Newberg’s wine country hills after a local winemaker’s fascination with history led him to acquire an ancient Mediterranean wine storage vessel.
Evan Bellingar, founder of Bellingar Estates, said an interest in rare and ancient coins led him to coin collecting, which eventually led him to the Ancient Coin Podcast — and, ultimately, to a 1,900-year-old clay wine-storing amphora now on display in his Newberg tasting room.
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“I love history,” he said, standing next to the crustacean-encrusted clay vessel shaped like an inverted teardrop. “I was an advertiser on the Ancient Coin Podcast, and he posted a story about a really cool amphora. Because he knows what we’re doing, he said, ‘This should really be with you.'”
The amphora — a clay vessel used to store wine — was excavated from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, presumably from a shipwreck in the first century A.D., Bellingar said. He said these vessels were commonly used to transport wine, and ships of the age usually had specialized racks to hold the uniquely shaped containers. From historical sources, he said the clay pots were usually one-way containers, as archaeologists have found “mountains” of amphoras in historic Mediterranean areas.
“They think this held wine and was distributed from an agricultural producer to a bigger city,” Bellingar said.
The existence of a vessel this ancient is more than an interesting centerpiece for his north Newberg tasting room — it is a sign, he said, of the wine industry’s resilience.
“Oregon and the world wine market is in a downturn,” he said. “You know, it has been the last two years, but we’ve been making wine for thousands and thousands of years. Some hopeful farmer grew grapes almost 2,000 years ago that were made into wine right there; that was made to be enjoyed by humans just like us. To me, that’s a touchstone, and one of the things I like about wine is that connection to our ancient past.”
The oldest evidence of winemaking was discovered in what is now Georgia, Israel, Armenia, and Iran, dated to be around 6,000 years old (4,000 B.C.), according to an article in Wine Folly. The same article notes older records of fermented beverages made with rice, honey, and fruit found in the Yellow River Valley of China in 7,000 B.C. Amphoras were used then, submerged in the earth for storage and fermentation, a practice known as “qvevri” (pronounced “Kev-ree”), which Georgian winemakers still use today.
Bellingar said the vessel will remain on display in the tasting room “until [tasting room manager Marcus Mason] and [wife Kim Bellingar] make me take it out.”
When asked whether he would ever consider pouring his own wine into the vessel, he said he would not rule it out.
“We have a smaller Greek wine glass from around 400 B.C., and I drank rosé out of it,” he said. “There was a real person 2,500 years ago who drank wine out of this and loved it, and so much has happened since then. But 2,500 years later, we’re still drinking wine out of the same glass.”
The Bellingar Estates tasting room is open by appointment at 24055 NE North Valley Road in Newberg. Tastings cost $20 per person, and reservations can be made at Bellingar Estates’ website, bellingarestates.com.
