Iranian (or Persian) wine has one of the oldest and most fascinating histories in the world — stretching back more than 7,000 years — and despite bans and upheavals, its legacy continues both inside and outside Iran today.
Archaeological finds from the Zagros Mountains in northern Iran reveal wine residues in Neolithic jars dating to around 5000 BCE, among the earliest evidence of winemaking anywhere on Earth.
According to Persian legend, the first wine was discovered under King Jamshid’s rule: a princess, believing grape juice that had fermented was poison, drank it and found herself healed — leading to the king’s embrace of wine culture. By the Achaemenid and Sassanian Empires, wine was deeply woven into Persian court life, religion, and poetry. Later, during the Islamic Golden Age, although public drinking was restricted, poets like Hafez and Omar Khayyam used wine as a symbol of love, joy, and divine ecstasy.
Up to the 20th century, cities like Shiraz (once famous for its vineyards) remained important wine centers. Under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran even aimed to become a global wine producer, with about 300 commercial wineries operating by the 1970s.
That ended after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which banned alcohol production and sale. Only non-Muslim minorities (Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, Zoroastrians) were allowed to make small quantities of wine for religious use. Some Iranians, however, continued home winemaking quietly.
In the 2000s and 2010s, exiled Iranian winemakers began reviving Persian traditions abroad:
♦ Drood Winery in Sweden, founded by Shahram Soltani, uses Iranian grape heritage and techniques to craft modern “Persian wines”.
♦ Molana Rasheh (2021) — made from smuggled Persian Rasheh grapes grown in Iran and vinified in Armenia — became the first wine from Iranian grapes in nearly 50 years.
♦ The Wines of Iran collection curates wines using grapes, produced legally in Armenia, since commercial winemaking remains banned within Iran.
