600-year-old pinot noir grape seed found in medieval hospital
The seed reveals that people in France have been cultivating the popular variety of grape since at least the 1400s, scientists say.
A 600-year-old grape seed discovered in the toilet of a medieval French hospital is genetically identical to the grapes still being used to make pinot noir wine, scientists said Tuesday.
It is not possible to say whether the fruit was "eaten like table grapes or whether people made wine from it at the time," study co-author Laurent Bouby told AFP.
But the research provides a link between modern France — one of the world's largest wine-producing and -consuming countries — and its distant wine-loving past.
Another study co-author, Ludovic Orlando, pointed out that the Hundred Years' War between England and France finally wrapped up in the mid-1400s.
And the brief life of France's patron saint, Joan of Arc, was also in the 15th century.