We know that wine tastes better with age; a bottle might be stored in a cellar for two to 20 years before it’s uncorked. Some wines, though, forgotten or abandoned, are left to age for decades or even centuries before they’re discovered again, if at all. We’re talking about wines from as long ago as the seventeenth century.

5,500-Year-Old Honey and 10 More Ancient Food Discoveries (Slideshow)

Last year, archeologists found remnants of 40 wine jars in an ancient wine cellar — the largest and oldest wine cellar unearthed in the Near East — in Northern Israel that was built around 1,700 B.C.E. So, are they still drinkable, or is 3,714 years too long to age wine?

Through explorations around the world, archeologists and deep-sea divers have discovered all kinds of ancient food and drink, some buried in thousand-year-old tombs, others abandoned in shipwrecks, and still more that have been dug up from prehistoric settlements.

Ceramic jars containing the world’s oldest honey (as far as archaeologists have found) — about 5,500 years old — were discovered in the tomb of a noblewoman in Georgia, not far from Tbilisi. They say honey never expires, but this honey is really old. Divers examining a 2,000-year-old shipwreck discovered in waters off the coast of Italy found about 200 pots on board containing remnants of fish as well as grain, wine, and oil.

And these are just a few of the world’s oldest food and drink finds.

Wine from 325 C.E.

Archeologists uncovered a tomb buried in the fourth century in Speyer, Germany, which held a bottle of wine believed to date back to 325 C.E.

The First Noodles





A bowl of ancient noodles — 2,500 years old — along with cakes, porridge, and meat bones, were found in a cemetery in China.

See more ancient food and drink discoveries.

Haley Willard is The Daily Meal's assistant editor. Follow her on Twitter @haleywillrd.