The origins of wine-making in Greece go back 6,500 years[3][4] and evidence suggesting wine production confirm that Greece is home to the second oldest known grape wine remnants discovered in the world[3][3][5] and the world’s earliest evidence of crushed grapes.[3] The spread of Greek civilization and their worship of Dionysus, the god of wine, spread Dionysian cults throughout the Mediterranean areas during the period of 1600 BC to the year 1.[6] Hippocrates used wine for medicinal purposes and readily prescribed it.[6] Greek wines and their varieties were well known and traded throughout the Mediterranean.[6] The Ancient Greeks introduced vines such as Vitis vinifera[6] and made wine in their numerous colonies in Italy,[7] Sicily,[8] southern France,[9] and Spain.[6] The Vitis vinifera grape which thrives in temperate climates near coastal areas with mild winters and dry summers adapted well and flourished in the Northern Mediterranean areas.[6] The most reputable wines of ancient Greece were Chian, Coan, Corcyraean, Cretan, Euboean, Lesbian, Leucadian, Mendaean, Peparethan wine, Rhodian and Thasian.