Saturday Trivia

Egypt's wine industry

Napa Valley Register
There's a teeny reference to the ancient Egyptian wine industry in the middle of the article, but I've mainly added this piece because I found it interesting :-)

When a transport company discovered that Andre Hadji-Thomas wanted to ship wine through Egypt, the firm’s employees refused his business, saying the money they would have earned would be tainted.That came as little surprise to Hadji-Thomas, who runs a profitable wine business despite a harsh desert climate, bureaucratic red tape and Islam’s ban on drinking alcohol.“There is a lot of opposition to what we are doing,” said Hadji-Thomas, managing director of EgyBev, Egypt’s second largest producer of alcoholic beverages.

“Because we are making alcoholic beverages, people are not very happy to cooperate with us because we are considered corrupt.”Still, business is booming. Both wine production and consumption are up in Egypt, thanks mostly to tourism but also to improvements in the quality of an industry that’s been around since the pharaohs.
Egyptologists say that wine was invented here, and even King Tut was laid to rest with wine jars in his tomb.“People have been drinking wine here quite consistently for nearly 5,000 years,” said Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. “At one point local wine was considered so good that even people from the Roman Empire were clamoring for it.”

Cartoon of Zahi Hawass by Bahgory
Al Ahram Weekly

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, with his Roman nose and poignant Pharaonic features, is determined as ever to bring to light the wonders of ancient Egypt to the world. I illustrated him in a special mood -- that of absolute astonishment and bewilderment at the ascertainment of Queen Hatshepsut's mummy.