Vitis vinifera, the common grape vine suitable for wine, is a species of Vitis, native to the Mediterranean region, Central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern Iran. It is described as ‘a wild woodland plant of Europe and eastern Asia [which existed] long before the idea of crushing and fermenting its grapes was imported, via Greece, from the Near East’ (Hugh Johnson: Wine Companion: 1991, p.17).