The Canaanite palace of Tel Kabri, the northwestern part of modern-day Israel, which was being excavated by various archaeologist teams since late 1980s, have found the largest prehistoric wine cellar revealing new insights into life during the Middle Bronze Age (between 2000 and 1550 BC).

Brandeis University's' archeologist Andrew Koh and his team unearthed 40 jars that were made from local clay during a 2013 dig, which show traces of wine infused with herbs and resins. The room holds the remains of 40 large, narrow-necked vessels that could have held a combined total of 528 gallons of liquid, enough to fill 3,000 modern bottles of wine.

Koh and his colleagues think this wasn't really a storage facility at all. It was a sort of kitchen where wine was brought in from the surrounding area.

Traces of tartaric acid, one of the main acids found in wine, were found from all the samples of 32 jars that were brought back to the lab in Massachusetts. But three of the jars also had syringic acid, a compound associated with red wine specifically.

The residue found in the jars also reveals the signs of various additives, which include herbs, berries, and tree resins and possibly honey. This proves that some of these ingredients might have been used for preservation or to give the wine psychotropic effects. The study was recently published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Andrew Koh, lead author and an archaeologist at Brandeis University, said, "This is a relatively sophisticated drink. Somebody was sitting there with years if not generations of experience saying this is what best preserves the wine and makes it taste better".

Patrick McGovern, a bimolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in ancient alcohol, mentions that finding tartaric and syringic acids doesn't definitively conclude that it was wine.