Etymology

The English word "wine" comes from the Proto-Germanic "*winam," an early borrowing from the Latin vinum, "wine" or "(grape) vine," itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European stem *win-o- (cf. Hittite: wiyana, Lycian: Oino, Ancient Greek οῖνος - oînos, Aeolic Greek ϝοίνος - woinos).^[7][8]
The earliest attested terms referring to wine are the Mycenaean Greek me-tu-wo ne-wo meaning "the month of new wine" or "festival of the new wine" and wo-no-wa-ti-si meaning "wine garden", written in Linear B inscriptions.^{[9][10][11][12]}
Although no clear evidence has been found of any linguistic connection, some scholars have noted the similarities between the words for wine in the Kartvelian (e.g. Georgian ღვინო ɣvino), Indo-European languages (e.g. Russian vino), and Semitic (*wayn), hinting to the possibility that this word diffused into all these language families from a common origin.^[13] Some Georgian scholars have speculated that Georgian was the origin of this word and that it entered into the Indo-European languages via Semitic.^[14]