At that time, the researchers concentrated on a single jar from King Tut's tomb. It emerged that the pharaoh eased his journey to the afterlife with a stash of red wine.
"As we examined the deposits in the other jars we got different results," Lamuela told Discovery News
Using a highly-sensitive detection technique, which combines liquid chromatography — the use of various methods to analyze complex mixtures — and mass spectrometry — a technique to analyze chemicals — Lamuela's team first identified tartaric acid in all the jars, confirming that the residues came from wine.
Rarely found in nature from sources other than grapes, tartaric acid has been used before as a marker for the presence of wine in ancient residues. However, the compound doesn't discriminate between red and white grapes.
Lamuela then used the same technique, called LC-MS-MS, to detect syringic acid. This is a breakdown product of malvidin-3-glucoside, the major component that imparts color to red wine.
While syringic acid was present in one jar, indicating that red grapes were the source for the sample, none of the other jars contained the chemical.
"Due to the different color observed in these samples which was yellow-brownish, and considering that tartaric acid and no syringic acid was found, we propose a white wine," the researchers wrote.
Inscriptions on the jars indicate that the white wine was made during the fourth and fifth year of Tutankhamun's reign at Western Delta in the estates owned by the Aton temple, near modern Alexandria.
Tutankhamun's property in the "Western River" produced both red and white wine, according to the inscriptions on the jars. They read: "Year 5. Wine of the Estate-of-Tutankhamun-Ruler-of-the-Southern-On in the Western River. Chief vintner Khaa."
"A white wine was also contained in an amphora which was a present given to Tutankhamun by vizier Pentu, who may be present in the funerary procession on the east wall at the Burial chamber. This may indicate that white wine was highly valued in Egypt since only the best products were offered for the afterlife of the Pharaoh," Lamuela said.
She added that red and white wine jars were strategically placed around Tutankhamun's body in the burial chamber.
"The real sense of the location of these two wine jars, both being next to the royal body, might have a particular symbolism with respect to rebirth," Lamuela said.
Indeed, red wine was associated with the blood of Osiris, the God of resurrection.
According to Patrick McGovern, the University of Pennsylvania molecular archaeologist who in 1994 discovered in Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran, the earliest evidence of wine production in a jar from as far back as 5,400 B.C., there is little doubt that King Tut drank white wine.
"I agree that the absence of malvidin, as well as the yellowish-brownish coloration of the residues in the jars, indicates that they contained a white wine," McGovern told Discovery.
The author of the recently published book "Ancient Wine," McGovern hypothesizes that the relative rarity of white grapes in the wild would have added to their acclaim and made them more valuable and prestigious, as well as a more fit offering to the gods, in both Mesopotamia and Egypt.
