[alganet]

It doesn't need to be fine wine from the best grapes. It doesn't even need to be from grapes. The first beers were murky, slurry and not cold and people loved it.

I can convince my first followers by doing the first crops and batches myself, alone.

Usage of animals and metal tools in agriculture came much later. I don't need that to start. I just need fire and ceramics.

Of course it wouldn't be _easy_. Empires are never easy.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is the context of the original comment about soap: food tech would be more succesful than soap tech.

[NikkiA]

Elderberry would be my choice - it has medicinal properties as well as being an enjoyable flavour, it's essentially unchanged in the history that we've known of it (5000 years), so wine production techniques won't have to change much, and it's a fairly fast growing tree/shrub so building up a large orchard won't be a big deal.