Tirê Hov: The Kurdish Wild Grape and the Mountain Where Wine Was Born

Sherko Sabir
May 31
6 min read

Tirê Hov: The Kurdish Wild Grape and the Mountain Where Wine Was Born

Scientists who study the origin of wine have a name for the place where it began: the Grape’s Fertile Triangle. It is a vast upland region bounded by three mountain ranges: the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey, the northern Zagros Mountains of western Iran, and the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Within this triangle, the wild ancestor of every wine grape and every table grape in the world — Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris, the wild Eurasian grapevine — grew in the forest understorey, climbed the oak and poplar trees, and bore its small, sour, intensely fragrant berries for tens of thousands of years before anyone cultivated it. And the centre of that triangle — the meeting point of the Taurus, the Zagros, and the Caucasus highlands, where all three mountain ranges converge and where the wild grape reached its greatest genetic diversity — is the Kurdish homeland. The evidence is molecular. Peer-reviewed genetic studies of wild grape populations (Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris) from the Zagros mountains of Kurdistan Province in north-western Iran — the Kurdish part of the Zagros — have confirmed the presence of genetically diverse wild grape populations in this specific landscape. The biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern has written that the wild Eurasian grapevine was most likely taken into domestication “somewhere in the arc of mountains extending from the eastern Taurus across Transcaucasia to the northwestern Zagros.” The eastern Taurus is Bakur. The northwestern Zagros is Rojhelat. The arc between them is the Kurdish mountain heartland. The series has been making the argument for one hundred and forty-seven articles that the Kurdish mountains are where the world’s food came from. The wild grape is the argument’s final and largest exhibit. This is the one-hundred-and-forty-seventh article in the series, and Sherko’s penultimate. The grand conclusion is the next article he will write. This one opens the door.

Key Takeaways

• Tirê hov (wild grape, Vitis sylvestris) grows in the Zagros and Taurus mountain forests — the wild ancestor of all cultivated grapes

• The ‘Grape’s Fertile Triangle’ — the origin zone of all viticulture — is centred on the Kurdish mountain heartland

• Peer-reviewed genetic studies confirm wild grape populations from Kurdistan Province (Zagros) are among the most diverse in the world

• Completes the Kurdish wild ancestor collection: olive, wheat, fig, walnut, pistachio — and now the grape

Quick Facts

Kurdish Name: Tirê hov (wild grape); tirê = grape vine, hov = wild; also üzüm (Turkish) for the cultivated form

Species: Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris — the wild Eurasian grapevine, wild ancestor of all cultivated wine and table grapes

Habitat: Forest understorey in the Zagros and Taurus mountain zones; climbs oak and poplar; grows in the Kurdish highland river valleys

Significance: Centre of the Grape’s Fertile Triangle; source of all wine grape diversity; domesticated ~6,000–8,000 BC in this mountain arc

The Wild Vine in the Zagros Forest

The tirê hov grows in the Zagros the way a vine grows in a forest: climbing. It is not a tree; it does not stand up by itself. It uses the oak — the same Quercus infectoria and Q. brantii that this series has documented as the foundation tree of the Zagros forest ecosystem, the tree that gave the kanzar mushroom its substrate and the saqez tree its companion — as its vertical support, winding its tendril shoots up through the canopy until it reaches the light. The berries of the wild vine are small, dark purple, and intensely flavored: sour and sweet and astringent together, with a grapiness that is more concentrated than any cultivated variety because the wild plant has not been selected for sweetness or yield but for survival. Kurdish communities in the Zagros and Taurus highlands would have gathered these wild berries for eating fresh, for pressing into juice, and eventually for making the fermented drink that became wine. The genetic studies tell us that the wild grape populations from Kurdistan Province (Zagros, north-western Iran) show high levels of genetic diversity — a sign that this is a long-established wild population, not a recent introduction, and that the Kurdish Zagros has been part of the wild grape’s native range for tens of thousands of years. The vine is not an interloper in the Zagros forest. It belongs there. It grew there before anyone noticed it, before anyone pressed it, before anyone discovered what its juice became when left in a jar for a week.

The Fertile Triangle and the Kurdish Centre

This series began with a thesis: that the Kurdish mountains are where the world’s food came from. Article by article, it has built the evidence. Olive domestication: in the Taurus mountains of Bakur (article #126). First wheat: Karacadağ, near Amed (article #127). Wild fig: the oldest cultivated fruit, growing wild in the Zagros (article #132). Wild walnut: the Zagros oak-pistachio forest (article #121). Wild pistachio (Pistacia atlantica): the Zagros forest, producing saqez (article #142). Each of these was a separate argument. Together, they make the same argument at different scales: the Kurdish mountain arc — the Taurus in the west, the Zagros in the east, the highlands connecting them — is the single most important landscape in the history of human food. The wild grape makes this argument its most comprehensive. The Grape’s Fertile Triangle, as botanists and archaeologists have named it, is the region where the wild Eurasian grapevine was most likely domesticated — the triangle of the Taurus, the northwestern Zagros, and the Caucasus. The Taurus is Bakur. The northwestern Zagros is Rojhelat. The region where these two Kurdish mountain zones meet and the Caucasus begins is the historical Kurdish-Armenian-Azerbaijani highland borderland — the Mount Ararat landscape that this series visited in the aşure and the helise articles, the mountain that stands at the centre of everything. Every glass of wine made anywhere in the world, every grape pressed into dûşav or dried into pestil or fermented into vinegar, traces its vine ancestry to this landscape: to the Taurus and the Zagros and the mountain arc between them. The wild grape was here first. It has always been Kurdish mountains that fed the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did the wild grape originate?

The wild ancestor of all cultivated grapes (Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris) is native to the upland region between the Taurus Mountains (eastern Turkey/Bakur), the northwestern Zagros Mountains (western Iran/Rojhelat), and the Caucasus — what botanists and archaeologists call the Grape’s Fertile Triangle. Genetic studies of wild grape populations from Kurdistan Province in the Zagros confirm high diversity in this specific zone. Biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern has concluded that the domestication of the wild Eurasian grapevine ‘appears very likely’ to have occurred ‘in the arc of mountains extending from the eastern Taurus across Transcaucasia to the northwestern Zagros.’

How does the wild grape relate to dûşav and pestil?

Dûşav (grape molasses, article #113) and pestil (grape leather, article #124) are the Kurdish products of the cultivated grape. Tirê hov is the wild ancestor of the vine that produces them. The same mountains that harboured the wild grape for tens of thousands of years are now the grape-growing highlands of Bakur and Rojhelat: the vines of the Dükeli vineyard near Amed, the Horamî grapes of Sulaymaniyah, the mountain vineyards pressed into molasses each autumn. The cultivated grape and its Kurdish products are the domesticated children of the wild vine that still grows in the Zagros forest understorey.

Is the wild grape still found in the Kurdish mountains?

Yes — and it is the subject of active conservation research. Wild grape populations (Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris) have been genetically characterised from the Zagros mountains of Kurdistan Province, Iran. These wild populations represent irreplaceable genetic resources for grape breeding — they carry traits (disease resistance, stress tolerance, flavour compounds) that have been lost in cultivated varieties. Their conservation depends on the survival of the Zagros oak forest ecosystem in which they grow, making the protection of the Zagros forest a matter of global viticultural importance.

Conclusion

Tirê hov is the one-hundred-and-forty-seventh article in the series. It is the last evidence Sherko will present before the grand conclusion. Olive from the Taurus. Wheat from Karacadağ. Fig from the Zagros. Walnut from the Zagros forest. Pistachio from the Zagros. And now the grape — from the Fertile Triangle whose centre point is the Kurdish mountain arc. These are not separate claims. They are the same argument, stated six times: that the landscape that produced the Kurds also produced the food of the world. One hundred and forty-seven articles in, the evidence is complete. The next article will say what it means.