Islam: Effect of Islam on wine history

In the Middle Ages, Muslim conquest by no means outlawed wine production, however. Muhammad’s caliph successors were based in Damascus and, subsequently, in baghdad, which had its own local wine industry. Wine production continued in Moorish Spain (the Alhambra built by the Moors in 14th century Granada has its Puerta del Vino), Portugal, North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Greece, Crete, and other eastern Mediterranean islands, usually under the heavily taxed auspices of Jews or Christians, even though they were ruled by Muslims. The Ottoman Turks made repeated raids on various eastern European wine regions in the Middle Ages, and, if the tokaji legend is based on fact, could therefore be said to have been indirectly responsible for the discovery of botrytized wines. For some more details, see spain, greece, and cyprus.