They either introduced or encouraged the dissemination of wine knowledge to several regions that today continue to produce wine suitable for international consumption. These include modern-day Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. (Though the Phoenicians may have had an indirect effect on the spread of viticulture in France, they are often confused with the Greek Phoceans, founders of the winemaking colony and port of Massilia in 600 BC and conveyors of wine knowledge deeper into the interior.)
The Phoenicians and their Punic descendants of Carthage had a direct influence on the growing winemaking cultures of the ancient Greeks and Romans that would later spread viticulture across Europe. The agricultural treatises of the Carthaginian writer Mago were among the most important early texts in the history of wine to record ancient knowledge of winemaking and viticulture. While no original copies of Mago’s or other Phoenician wine writers’ works have survived, there is evidence from quotations of Greek and Roman writers such as Columella that the Phoenicians were skilled winemakers and viticulturists.