Sheraz?

[Kcwhippet]

Welcome to the board, Denise. The actual origins of the grape are obscure, certainly many thousands of years old, and most likely from the area of Shiraz in Iran. The Greeks, not the Iranians (or the Persians back then), took the grape to France about 500 B.C. and planted it in the Rhone valley. That's over 2,500 years ago, so it wasn't a recent event brought about by a war. Nobody "ripped off" the Iranians, and they are certainly welcome to make wine from the grapes around their town of Shiraz and sell it on the world market. Over the centuries, by the way, the name evolved in France to Syrah, so you'll find the wine called either Shiraz or Syrah depending generally on where it's made.