wine, Greek and Roman
wine, Greek and Roman
- Dimitri van Limbergen
Summary
Grape cultivation reached Greece towards the end of the 3rd millennium bce, and Italy around the beginning of the 1st millennium bce. From the 8th century bce onward, systematic viticulture expanded, and wine became deeply embedded in Greco-Roman society at all levels. It was the beverage of choice for both the wealthy and the poor, a major intoxicant in the ancient world, and an essential source of energy in the daily diet. Wine was widely used in religion, feasts, and medicine, and was considered a key marker of civilized culture. Combined with the vine’s high productive potential and its low agronomic needs, all this made wine a primary feature of the agrarian economy and an important product of (inter)national trade. Literature, iconography, and archaeology sketch a picture of significant Greek and Roman realizations in vine-growing techniques and winemaking technology, thus testifying to a level of scientific expertise unmatched until the 19th century. The consumption of wine was stratified and diversified, with the market divided between premium vintages for the rich, ordinary wines for the masses, and winery drinks for the lower classes.
Subjects
- Ancient Economy
Updated in this version
Article rewritten to reflect contemporary scholarship. Digital materials added.
Origins and Diffusion
The wild Eurasian grapevine (Vitis vinifera ssp sylvestris) grows naturally in a wide area around the Mediterranean basin, including Western Asia, Central and Southern Europe, and Northwest Africa (see Figure 1). Its domestication process in the Neolithic period is still imperfectly understood, but archaeological and genetic data point to at least two primary centres of origin for the cultivated grapevine (Vitis vinifera ssp sativa): the Anatolian Peninsula and the Caucasus in the East, and an unspecified region in the West (perhaps Spain).1 The specific timing and mechanisms of its subsequent distribution in the Bronze Age—probably a continuous mix of transplantation of cultivated vines and introgression with local wild vines—remain to be investigated, but grape cultivation was certainly present in the Greek world in the late 3rd millennium bce, and in Italy around the turn of the 1st millennium bce. In any case, this process eventually gave way to the development of systematic viticulture in Greece (8th century bce), southern France (Massilia) (c. 600 bce), and two of the major wine areas of pre-Roman Italy: Etruria and Magna Graecia (7th–5th centuries bce). These traditions were then inherited and sophisticated by the Romans, who in turn introduced them to much of Europe’s temperate climate regions (e.g., northern France, Germany, and even southern Britain) over the following centuries.2 Thus started the formation of many of the historical winery landscapes of the Old World.3
Figure 1. The distribution of the wild grape, after Zohary et al. (2012, Fig. 2.1).
The symbolic and ritual significance of wine was undoubtedly of major importance in the early spread of viticulture throughout the Mediterranean (see dionysus). From the late 8th century bce onward, the dissemination of Oriental banquet culture—that is, ceremonial élite drinking (and dining) while reclining—and its associated ceramic repertoire to Greece (symposium), Etruria, and Rome (convivium) further contributed to the increasing popularity of wine as an intoxicant and a prestige product. Wine thus became the marker par excellence of classical culture: a key feature of the civilized image and lifestyle on which Greeks and Romans modelled their native and conquered territories (see Hellenism, Hellenization, and Romanization).4 But perhaps more importantly, wine was food and drink in the ancient world and an essential source of carbohydrates in the Greco-Roman diet. Combined with the vine’s high productive potential and its low agronomic needs, this turned wine into a central component of the agrarian economy and an important product of international trade. This is best evidenced by the massive production of amphorae, large ceramic jars with two opposite handles that were used for transporting liquids in bulk across the sea; a practice that goes back to the Canaanites in the Bronze Age Near East. From there, amphora-making first spread to the Egyptians (15th–14th century bce), and later to the Phoenicians (8th–7th century bce), the Greeks (late 8th–7th century bce, and through them Sicily and southern Italy in the 5th–4th century bce) (see amphorae and amphora stamps, Greek), the Etruscans (end 7th–6th century bce), and eventually the Romans (3rd century bce) (see amphorae and amphora stamps, Roman). By the late 2nd century bce, Italian wine was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean, especially in Gaul, where the Iron Age aristocracy imported huge amounts of it for religious practices (see Gaul, Transalpine).5 This dominance of Italy ceased in the 1st century ce, in part because of the development of endogenous wine production in the provinces, in part because of demographic and market transformations in Italy.6
Vine-Growing
Wine features prominently in ancient literature, and vine-growing practices are discussed by a number of classical writers.7 The earlier sources for Greek viticulture are selective and anecdotal. In the late 8th century bce, Homer (Od. 7. 122–125) and Hesiod (Op. 609–614) offer the oldest descriptions of appassimento winemaking, a method to produce sweet wines strong in alcohol and aroma by drying the harvested grapes in the sun for a prolonged period of time. This technique would remain associated with most of the acclaimed wines throughout antiquity.8 Later sources are more informative. Xenophon (1) is the first to describe the vine-planting process in the second quarter of the 4th century bce (Oec. 19. 12, 18–19), but only Theophrastus (c. 370–287 bce) provides a full (if still general) account of the entire vine cultivation cycle in his De causis plantarum.9 Noteworthy is also the author’s emphasis on the importance of soil and landscape in vineyard site selection, thus already demonstrating a clear recognition of terroir (Caus. pl. III.1.11).
This notion would find its fullest expression in the later Latin farming manuals by Cato (see Porcius Cato (1), Marcus), Varro, and Columella, and in Pliny the Elder’s encyclopaedic Naturalis Historia, all written in the heyday of Italian viticulture between the mid-2nd century bce and the late 1st century ce; a time of overall warm and stable climatic conditions that allowed for a considerable expansion of vine-growing (Col. RR, 1.1.4–5) (see agricultural writers).10 Their manuscripts—relying in part on earlier Punic (Mago’s manual on Carthaginian agriculture) and contemporary Roman (e.g., Saserna’s and Tremelius Scrofa’s farming works, but especially Julius Graecinus’ De Vineis) handbooks, now lost—contain a wealth of detailed information on all aspects of ancient vine growing, displaying as such a level of scientific (if empirical) expertise unmatched until the 19th century.11 Pliny gives the best discussion on the relationship between grape varieties and their environments (Pliny HN, 14.4).12 Columella offers the most comprehensive and technical account, from (trans)planting, grafting, thinning, and pruning, over the various methods of staking and supporting vines (many of them echoing modern techniques) (Figure 2), to the preparations for the harvest. Another rich if quite different source is Virgil’s didactic poem the Georgics, even if the poet’s metrical descriptions are less straightforward to interpret. The only real source for late antiquity remains Palladius’ Opus Agriculturae, probably redacted in the 5th century ce and much indebted to the earlier farming texts.13
Figure 2. The vine training systems listed by Columella, Res Rustica (4.12; 16.3–4; 17; 19; 26) and Pliny, Naturalis Historia (17.35.164–166): (1) low-grown with the branches spread on the ground; (2) vines standing on their own (vitis suberectae); (3) propped vines with a single stake; (4) propped vines supported by a single crossbar (vitis iugata); (5) vines trellised with a rectangular framework (vitis camerata or compluviata); (6) vines supported by trees (arbustum), after Jashemski (2017, Fig. 4.7).
The majority of the vine-growing systems described by the ancient agronomists have a marked mixed aspect, with vines organized between other crops.14 This is unsurprising, as agriculture in the ancient Mediterranean was mostly polyculture in nature (see agriculture, Greek and agriculture, Roman).15 The interlaying fields were mainly reserved for cereals, but intercropping with vegetables, legumes, or fruit trees was also common. Pliny, for example, mentions the porculetum, a wheat field intersected by rows of vines that was characteristic for Umbria and Marsia (HN 17.35.171). But the most widespread mixed cultivation practice in Roman Italy was the arbustum, a silvoarable agroforestry system with vines trained high on host trees bordering grain fields. The technique was not invented by the Romans—archaeological and textual data strongly point towards an origin in those areas once occupied by the Etruscans—but it did enjoy a solid reputation in quality viticulture.16 In fact, Pliny was of the opinion that top wines could only be produced from arbustum plantations because of the beneficial effects of height and better sun exposure on the grapes (HN 17.35.199–200); just another indication that most great wines in antiquity were sweet and strong. This was certainly the case for the famous Caecuban wine, made from vines grown on poplar trees in the marshy coastal grounds of the Ager Caecubus in Latium Adjectum, close to modern Fondi (Pliny, HN 14.8.61).
Besides a few pits and trenches from the 5th–4th century bce, there is at present little archaeological data on vineyards in ancient Greece.17 There is however a growing body of evidence for Italy (in particular the urban area of Pompeii and the surroundings of Rome) and Southern France, due in large part to the recent development of rescue archaeology. These findings are increasingly corroborating and attuning our textual information on Greco-Roman cultivation and trellising practices.18
Yield remains a heavily debated issue.19 All we have at our disposal are a handful of production figures from the Roman farming manuals, and these show an enormous area of variation (ca. 21–310 hl/ha) (Cato Agr. Orig. 11.1; Col. Rust. 3.3.3,7,11; Pliny HN 14.5.52; Varro Rust. 1.2.7–8). This is logical in view of the typically large inter-annual and inter-regional fluctuations in grape yields and the many factors that influence them. Even so, the highest quoted yields (>200 hl/ha) must have been extremely rare and attainable only under specific circumstances, as they are today.20 To a certain degree, the agronomists realized that yields were influenced by the complex interaction of climate, soil fertility, vine (age, vegetative growth), cultivar (low- vs. high-yielding), the density of planting, and the methods of cultivation (e.g., pruning significantly affects yield).21 This understanding allowed Roman vintners to adapt their production strategies to the market they were aiming at: ordinary wines for mass consumption or fine wines for a small élite.22
Winemaking
Literature, iconography and archaeology have all contributed substantially to our knowledge of Greco-Roman winemaking, and the equipment that was used in the process.23 Hesiod informs us that the picking of the grapes took place in early September in his native Boeotia (Op. 609–614) (see Boeotia and Boeotian Confederacy). In the Western Mediterranean, in the 1st century ce, the harvest occurred somewhere between mid/late August and late September (Col. Rust., 11.2.60; Pliny HN 18.74.315–316). Vinification all’antica (Figure 3) relied in the first place on the crushing of the grapes by barefoot treading, a simple and efficient way to promote the contact between the grape juice and the yeasts in the berries’ skins, and thus to ensure the start of the alcoholic fermentation. In ancient Greece, crushing was often carried out in compact, portable containers (lēnoi) that were large enough for one person to tread several small batches of grapes. Such scenes are a recurrent motif on 6th–5th century bce black- and red-figured Attic pottery, typically showing naked individuals treading grapes in a tub or wicker basket placed on a trestle, positioned over a receptacle that caught the must (Figures 4 and 5).24 These mobile and “primitive” tools surely continued to be used in domestic or small-scale winemaking throughout antiquity. Otherwise, a more permanent treading floor was used, sometimes a rock-cut basin, but usually a waterproof masonry vat (calcatorium) (Figure 6) of the kind commonly depicted in Roman imagery (Figure 7). In the late antique East, a type of winery developed that used stone rollers for treading, possibly linked with the production of sweet raisin wines made from semi-dried grapes (Figure 8).25
Figure 3. Diagram of the vinification process in antiquity.
Figure 4. Detail of the Dionysian Vintage kylix by the Chiusi Painter, 520–500 bce. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Figure 5. “Vintaging amphora” by the Amasis Painter, late 6th century bce. Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig.
Figure 6. Treading floor from House II.9.6 in Pompeii, after Jashemski (2017, Fig. 4.12B).
Figure 7. Grape treading on a mosaic calendar from Saint-Romain-en-Gal, 3rd century ce., after Jashemski (2017, Fig. 4.14A).
Figure 8. Late antique roller winery from northern Syria, after De Voguë 1865–1877, pl. 113.
Treading already extracted about 60% to 80% of potential must out of the grapes, but extra pressure could be applied to the pomace to squeeze out the remaining must, and this step gradually became more important in commercial viticulture. It is unclear to which extent pressing was a common component of winemaking in Archaic and Classical Greece (see Greece (prehistory and history)). The depiction of a basic lever-and-weight press on an Attic black-figure skyphos from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Figure 9) proves the existence of mechanical presses in Greece from at least the late 6th-century BCE onwards, but the archaeological evidence for wine presses remains weak, even for the Hellenistic period.26 Pressing may often have been performed by simply stomping the pomace in a bag press made from animal skin, as perhaps illustrated on a column-krater by the Cleveland Painter (Figure 10). The evidence for the Roman world is much more solid, and sketches a picture of progressive technological innovation. Around the mid-second century bce, Cato describes a lever-and-drum/winch press that consists of a wooden beam fitted at one end between two wooden piers (arbores), and at the other end attached to a drum or winch fixed between two uprights (stipites) (Cato, Agr. Orig., 18–19) (Figure 11, A). Around the mid-1st century bce, the more efficient lever-and-screw press appeared, replacing the drum or winch with a wooden screw mechanism, whose lower end was placed in either a stone weight or a box with stones, and its higher end pierced through the horizontal press beam (Heron, Mech. 3.15; Pliny HN 18.74.317) (Figure 11, B). This type was followed by several versions of more compact, direct-pressure-screw presses (Figure 11, C). Archaeology and literature (Dig. 19.2.19) demonstrate how all types remained in use until late antiquity.27
Figure 9. The Boston Museum skyphos, 520–510 bce. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund.
Figure 10. Column-krater attributed to the Cleveland Painter, 460–450 bce.
After treading and pressing, the must was drained into large semi-buried clay containers, called pithoi (Greek) or dolia (Roman), in which the grape juice underwent further fermentation, clarification and often modification. The texts by Columella and Pliny contain long lists of additives to treat deficiencies in sugar (defrutum, i.e., boiled and concentrated grape must) or acidity (calcium sulfate in the form of gypsum or plaster), to add flavour (honey and a wide array of herbs and spices), or to promote stability and thus the shelf-life of the wine (salt or seawater) (Cato Agr. Orig. 23–24; Col. Rust., 12.19–29; Pliny HN 14. 24–26; Pall. 11.14; Geop. 6.18; 7.4; 7.12.15).28 Many of these interventions derived from Greek practices, in particular the addition of sea water to the must, which was considered a distinctive feature of Greek wine in general (Pliny HN 14.24.120; Col. Rust., 12.25), and the renowned Coan wine in particular (Cato, Agr. Orig. 112). Most wine was consumed within the year, but the best wines were praised for their aging potential, such as the Alban (15 years), the Falernian (10–20 years) or the Surrentine (25 years). Such long periods of maturing will often have resulted in (mild) oxidation and thus maderization, gradually darkening the wine’s colour.29 Roman vintners could accelerate this process artificially by exposing the wine to heat by storing it (in jars) in lofts above hearths (Col. Rust., 1.6.20). Finally, the various trajectories and regulations of wine marketing are elucidated to some extent by Greek (SEG xxxvi, n° 790; IG xii Suppl. 347) and Roman (Cato, Agr. Orig. 147–148) legal (Dig.) texts, which often seem concerned with assurances as to genuineness, quantity and quality.30
Types of Wine and Consumption
Wine was the beverage of choice for all classes in Greco-Roman society. It is assumed that people in antiquity drank on average about half a litre of wine per day.31 This might seem excessive, but Greeks and Romans drank their wine diluted with cold or hot water (and sometimes with milk and honey). Various mixtures are listed in the ancient texts, but water almost always prevailed (e.g. Hesiod Op. 596; Pliny HN 14.6.54; 23.25), as drinking strong or neat wine was considered not only detrimental to one’s physical and mental health (Philo, Noah 147), but also uncivilized (Ammianus Marcellinus 15.12). Moderate drinking was widely accepted and often advised by Greek and Roman physicians, even to children in a heavily diluted form (Hippocrates (2), Aer. 9, 2.40, 5–7 L.), but not so much to (pregnant) women (Soranus Gyn. 1.38). Excessive drinking however was generally dissuaded (Hippoc. Acut. 10.2.302.1 L.; Epid. 2, 6, 30.5.138, 9 f. L.; Epid. 3, 2, 5, 3.46–48 L.) and habitual drunkenness was considered problematic, and at times even morally condemned (see alcoholism, Greek and alcoholism, Roman).32 But overall wine was seen as beneficial, and it was a key component of ancient medicine, with various types and dosages used in therapeutic and dietetic treatments.33
Drinking in the ancient world – as in any other pre-industrial society – was essentially a social act, but over time it also became a marker of social differentiation.34 Several areas in the Mediterranean had acquired a reputation for premium vintages; limited quality products that were only affordable to the privileged and the wealthy. Athenaeus (1) offers the best list of fine Greek wines (Ath. I. 26c–27d). The most renowned and popular ones—all very sweet and white—came from the Aegean islands, in the first place Chios and Thasos (Pliny HN 14.9.73), and then chiefly Lemnos, Cos, Lesbos, and Icaros.35 The highly acclaimed Pramnian wine, mentioned for the first time by Homer (Il. XI. 628; Od. X. 234–236) and probably made in various places on the Erythrae peninsula, was a darker, dryer, and more bitter wine in the Archaic and the Classical period; contrary to its Hellenistic and Roman version, which was much sweeter (Diosc. Mat Med. 5.6.4) (Figure 12).36 Pliny’s encyclopaedic list of wines (Pliny HN 14.8.59–72) shows that in Roman Italy most of the prestige vineyards lay in Latium and Campania, often in close connection with the country estates of the élite. Various styles of Alban wine were made in the eponymous hills to the southeast of Rome (Ath. I. 26d; Mart. Ep. 13.109; Pliny HN 23.20; Juv. 5.33; Hor. Sat. 2.8.14); on the border between Latium and Campania, the ager Falernus produced five appellations of the famed Falernian (Mart. Ep. 13.111; Hor. Sat. 2.4.51; Sil. Pun. 7.207); and from the Bay of Naples came the Gauranum (Ath. I. 26f, 27a; Mart. Ep. 10.35.13–113; Juv. 1.69) and the Surrentinum (Ath. I. 26d; Diocl. Price Ed. 2.6). The most celebrated wines along the Adriatic coast of the peninsula were the Hadrianum and the Praetutianum from Picenum (Anth. Pal. 6.257, 9.232; Diosc. Mat. Med. 5.6.8; Sil. Pun. 15.568), and further to the north the Raetian from the hills around Verona, which became particularly popular under the reign of Augustus (Figure 13).37 The classification and evaluation of wines in antiquity was inseparably linked with their medical properties, but the Greco-Roman aristocracy clearly appreciated them for their organoleptic qualities too, as such developing a language for their sensory examination akin to modern wine tasting practices.38
Figure 13. Map of quality wines in Roman Italy, as listed by Pliny, after Tchernia and Olmer 2004, Fig. 123.
Most of the inhabitants of the Greco-Roman world had to be satisfied with much more ordinary wines, sold cheaply in the many bars of Greek (kapeleion) and Roman (thermopolium) towns. Archaeology and literature suggests that vigorous wine drinking became particularly widespread among the urban working classes in the Roman Empire in the 1st century ce.40 A favourite winery beverage was mulsum, a sweet drink made from grape must mixed with honey and spices (Col. Rust. 12.41). Wine drinking within poor or rural milieus was probably confined to the consumption of watery wines, such as lora (an afterwine made by soaking press leftovers in water) (Cato, Agr. Orig., 56–58) or posca (a vinegar-like wine mixed with water and herbs).41 Good wines they were not, but in the ancient world boiled, spiced, or sweetened water mixed with grape residues was often safer than plain water.42
Primary Texts
- Athenaeus. Deipnosophistae. Vol. 1: Books I–III.106e. Edited and translated by S. Douglas Olson. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
- Bassus, Cassianus, and Andrew Dalby. Geoponika: Farm Work. A Modern Translation of the Roman and Byzantine Farming Handbook. Devon, UK: Prospect Books, 2011.
- Cato & Varro. De Agri Cultura & Res Rusticae. Translated by William Davis Hooper and Harrison Boyd Ash. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
- Columella. Res Rustica. Vol. 1: Books I–IV. Translated by Harrison Boyd Ash. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941.
- Columella. Res Rustica. Vol. 2: Books V–IX. Translated by Edward Seymore Forster and Edward H. Heffner. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
- Galen. Galeni opera omnia. 20 vols. Edited by Carl Gotlob Kühn. Hildesheim, Germany: G. Olms, 1964. Originally published in 1821–1833.
- Galen. Selected Works. A new translation by Peter N. Singer. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997.
- Hesiod. Theogony and Works and Days. A new translation by M. L. West. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Hippocrates. Diseases. Vol. 5. Translated by Paul Potter. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
- Hippocrates. Internal Affections. Vol. 6. Translated by Paul Potter. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
- Hippocrates. Epidemics. Vol. 7. Translated by W.D. Smith. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
- Palladius. Opus Agriculturae. A new translation from the Latin by John G. Fitch. Devon, UK: Prospect Books, 2013.
- Pedanius Dioscorides. The Greek Herbal. Edited by Robert Theodore Gunther. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934.
- Pliny. Naturalis Historia. Vol. 4: Books XII–XVI. Translated by Harris Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
- Theophrastus. De Causis Plantarum, Vol. 2: Books III–IV. Edited and translated by Benedict Einarson and George K. K. Link. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
- Virgil. Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1–6. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
- Virgil. Georgics. A new translation by Peter Fallon. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Links to Digital Materials
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Collections, Art of the Ancient World.
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Collections, Antiquities.
- Classical Art Research Centre, Oxford University.
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- McGovern, Patrick, Stuart J. Fleming, and Solomon H. Katz, eds. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Routledge, 1996.
- Robinson, Jancis, and Julia Harding, eds. The Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015.
- Salviat, François, and André Tchernia. Vins, Vignerons, et Buveurs de l’Antiquité. Rome, Italy: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2013.
- Tchernia, André. Le vin de l’Italie romaine. Essai d’histoire économique d’après les amphores (Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, Fascicule 261). Rome, Italy: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1986.
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Notes
1. Patrick E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Fleming, and Solomon H. Katz, eds. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine(Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Routledge, 1996); Daniel Zohary, Maria Hopf, and Ehud Weiss, Domestication of Plants in the Old World, 4th ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012); and R. Arroyo-García et al., “Multiple Origins of Cultivated Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L. ssp. Sativa) Based on Chloroplast DNA Polymorphisms,” Molecular Ecology 15, no. 12 (2006): 3707–3714.
2. Tim Unwin, Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade. London, UK: Routledge, 1991; David L Thurmond, From Vines to Wines in Classical Rome: A Handbook of Viticulture and Oenology in Rome and the Roman West (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017); Laurent Bouby et al., “Bioarchaeeological Insights into the Process of Domestication of Grapevine (Vitis Vinifera L.) during Roman times in Southern France,” PLOS One 8, no. 5 (2013): 1–13; Marvelli, S. S. De Siena, E. Rizzoli, and M. Marchesini, “The Origin of Grapevine Cultivation in Italy: The Archaeobotanical Evidence," Annali di Botanica, 3 (2013): 155–163; and Riccardo Aversano et al., “Dating the Beginning of the Roman Viticultural Model in the Western Mediterranean: The Case Study of Chianti (Central Italy),” PLOS One 12, no. 11 (2017): 1–15.
3. Jancis Robinson and Julia Harding, eds., The Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015).
4. Oswyn Murray and Manuela Tecusan, eds., In Vino Veritas (London, UK: British School at Rome, 1995).
5. André Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine: Essai d’histoire économique d’après les amphores Rome, Italy: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1986); Jean-Pierre Brun, Le vin et l’huile dans la Méditerranée antique: Viticulture, oléiculture, et procédés de fabrication (Paris, France: Éditions errance, 2003); Christian Vandermersch, Vins et amphores de Grande Grèce et de Sicile (IVe–IIIe s. avant J.-C.) (Naples, Italy: Publications du Centre Jean Bérard, 1994); Maurice Lenoir, Daniele Manacorda, and Clementina Panella, eds., Amphores romaines et histoire économique: Dix ans de recherché. Actes du Colloque (Rome, Italy: École française de Rome, 1989); and Poux, Matthieu, L’Âge du Vin. Rites de boisson, festins et libations en Gaule indépendante (Montagnac, France: éditions Monique mergoil, 2004).
6. Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman. The origins of provincial civilization in Gaul (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998); André Tchernia, “La crise de l’Italie impériale et la concurrence des provinces,” Les Cahiers du Centre de Recherches Historiques: Archives 37 (2006): 137–156; and Dimitri Van Limbergen, “The Central Adriatic Wine Trade of Italy Revisited,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 37, no. 2 (2017): 201–226.
7. References in Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z (London: Routledge, 2003); and John F. Donahue, Food and Drink in Antiquity: A Sourcebook. Readings from the Graeco-Roman World (London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2015).
8. Nicolas Belfrage, “Dried Grapes: The Classic Wines of Antiquity,” Journal of Wine Research 4, no. 3 (1993): 205–225.
9. Signe Isager and Jens Erik Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture. An Introduction (London, UK: Routledge, 1992).
10. Nicolas Purcell, “Wine and Wealth in Ancient Italy,” The Journal of Roman Studies 75 (1985): 1–19; and Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease & the End of an Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017).
11. Barry Baldwin,“Columella’s Sources and How He Used Them,” Latomus 22, no. 4 (1963): 785–791.
12. Jacques André,“Contributions au vocabulaire de la viticulture: les noms des cépages,” in Revue des Études Latines 30 (1952): 126–156; François Salviat,“Les cépages de la vigne en Grèce ancienne,” in Les écrivains et le sacré: la vigne et le vin dans la littérature : actes du XIIe congrès [de l’] Association Guillaume Budé, Bordeaux 17–21 (Paris, France: les Belles Lettres, 1989): 459–461; and Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine, 184–188, 350–357.
13. Marco Johannes Bartoldus, Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus: Welt und Wert Spätrömischer Landwirtschaft (Augsburg, Germany: Wißner-Verlag, 2012).
14. Thibaut Boulay and Patricia Van Den Eeckhout, eds., “La viticulture grecque de l’époque hellénistique à l’époque byzantine,” Food & History 11, no. 2 (2013): 5–196; and Thurmond, From Vines to Wines.
15. Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen, The Etruscans (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1998).
16. Emilio Sereni, Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano (Bari, Italy: Editori Laterza, 1962).
17. Philippe Boissinot, “Archéologie des vignobles grecs antiques,” Food & History 11, no. 2 (2013): 113–124.
18. Italy: Philippe, Boissinot, “Les vignobles des environs de Mégara Hyblaea et les traces de la viticulture italienne durant l’Antiquité, “ Melanges de l’ecole francaise de Rome 121, no. 1 (2009): 83–132; Andrea Ciacci, Paola Rendini, and Andrea Zifferero, eds., Archeologia della vite e del vino in Toscana e nel Lazio (Florence, Italy: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2012); Rome: Rita Volpe, “Vino, vigneti ed anfore in Roma Repubblicana,” in Suburbium II: Il suburbio di Roma dalla fine dell'età monarchica alla nascita del sistema delle ville (V–II secolo a.C.), ed. Vincent Jolivet, Carlo Pavolini, Maria Antonietta Tomei, and Rita Volpe (Rome, Italy: École française de Rome, 2009), 369–381; Pompeii: Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas Brothers, 1979); Wilhelmina F. Jashemski and Frederick G. Meyer, eds., The Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim J. Hartswick, and Amina-Aïcha Malek, eds., Gardens of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017); France: Jean-Pierre Brun and Fanette Laubenheimer, “La Viticulture en Gaule,” Gallia 58, no. 1 (2001): 1–260; and Jean-Pierre Brun, Matthieu Poux, and Marie-Laure Hervé-Monteil, “La vigne et le vin dans les Trois Gaules,” Gallia 68.1 (2011): 1–292.
19. Raymond Billiard, La vigne dans l’antiquité. Lyon, France: Librairie H. Lardanchet, 1913; Thurmond, Vines to Wines; René Martin, Recherches sur les agronomes latins et leurs conceptions économiques et sociales (Paris, France: Les Belles Lettres, 1971); Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and Andrea Carandini, Schiavi in Italia: Gli Strumenti Pensanti dei Romani fra Tarda Repubblica e Medio Impero (Rome, Italy: Carocci, 1988).
20. Gaetano Forni, “Colture, lavori, techniche, rendimenti,” in Storia dell’Agricoltura Italiana I. L’età Antica. 2. Italia romana, ed. Gaetano Forni and Arnaldo Marcone (Florence, Italy: Edizioni Polistampa, 2002), 63–156.
21. Robinson and Harding, Oxford Companion to Wine; Ronald Jackson, Wine Science: Principles and Application, 4th ed. (Burlington, VT: Academic Press, 2014); and A. J. Winkler, General Viticulture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1962).
22. Purcell, “Wine and Wealth in Ancient Italy”; Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine.
23. Billiard, La vigne dans l’antiquité; Marie-Claire Amouretti and Jean-Pierre Brun, eds., La production du vin et de l’huile en Méditerranée, BCH, Suppl. XXVI(Athens, Greece: École française d’Athènes, 1993); Jean-Pierre Brun, Le vin et l’huile dans la Méditerranée antique: Viticulture, oléiculture, et procédés de fabrication (Paris, France: Éditions errance, 2003); Jean-Pierre Brun, Archéologie du vin e de l’huile de la Préhistoire à l’Époque Hellénistique (Paris, France: Éditions errance, 2004a) ; Jean-Pierre Brun, Archéologie du vin et de l’huile dans l’Empire Romain (Paris, France: Éditions errance, 2004b);Thurmond, Vines to Wines; Jean-Pierre Brun, Archéologie du vin et de l’huile en Gaule en Gaule romaine (Paris, France: Éditions errance, 2005); Jeremy Rossiter, “Wine and Oil Processing at Roman Farms in Italy,” Phoenix 35, no. 4 (1981): 345–361; Jeremy Rossiter, “Wine-Making after Pliny: Viticulture and Farming Technology in Late Antique Italy,” In Technology in Transition A.D. 300–650, ed. Luke Lavan, Enrico Zanini, and Alexander Sarantis (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007), 93–118; Robert I. Curtis, Ancient Food Technology (Leiden, The Netherlands:: Brill, 2001); and David L. Thurmond, A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome. For Her Bounty No Winter (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006).
24. B.A. Sparkes, “Treading the Grapes,” BABesch 51 (1976): 47–64; Kathleen M. Lynch, “Winemaking Scenes on Attic Red-Figured Cups. Not Crushing, but Pigeage, Punching Down the Cap,” BABesch 87 (2012): 151–157; H. Immerwahr, “New Wine in Ancient Wineskins: The Evidence from Attic Vases,” Hesperia 61 (1992): 121–132.
25. Michael Decker, Tilling the Hateful Earth: Agricultural Production and Trade in the Late Antique East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Dimitri Van Limbergen, “Changing Perspectives on Roller Presses in Late Antique Northern Syria,” Syria 94 (2017): 307–323.
26. Brun, Préhistoire à l’Époque Hellénistique.
27. Tamara Lewit, “Invention, Tinkering or Transfer? Innovation in Oil and Wine Processing in the Roman Empire,” in Capital, Investment and Innovation in the Roman World, ed. Paul Erdkamp, Koen Verboven, and Andries Zuiderhoek (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020).
28. Billiard, La vigne dans l’antiquité; Amouretti, “L’originalité technique du vin grec”; André Tchernia, “La vinification au début de notre ère et le gout des vins romains,” in Le vin romain antique, ed. André Tchernia and Jean-Pierre Brun (Grenoble, Switzerland: Éditions Glénat, 1999), 108–147; Jean-Pierre Brun and André Tchernia, “Vendanges et Vinification,” in Le Vin: Nectar des Dieux, Génie des Hommes, ed. Jean-Pierre Brun, Matthieu Poux, and André Tchernia (Gollion, Switzerland: Infolio, 2004), 242–259; Thibaut Boulay, “Les techniques vinicoles grecques, des vendanges aux Anthestéries: nouvelles perspectives,” Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne. Supplément 7 (2012): 95–115; Thurmond, Food Processing in Classical Rome, 128–160; Thurmond, Vines to Wines, 136–207; and Stavroula Kourakou-Dragona, Vine and Wine in the Ancient Greek World (Athens, Greece: Foinikas, 2015).
29. Amouretti, “L’originalité technique du vin grec”; and Boulay, “Les techniques vinicoles grecquesi
30. François Salviat, “Le vin de Thasos: Amphores, vin et sources écrites,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Suppl. 13 (1986): 145–196; Isager and Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture; Ilias Arnaoutoglou, Ancient Greek Laws. A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1998); and André Tchernia, “La vente du vin,” in Mercati permanenti e mercati periodici nel mondo romano: atti degli Incontri capresi di storia dell’economia antica, ed. Elio lo Cascio (Bari, Italy: Edipuglia, 2000): 223–235.
31. André Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine; and Dimitri Van Limbergen, “What Romans Ate and How Much They Ate of It. Old and New Research on Eating Habits and Dietary Proportions in Classical Antiquity,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 96 (2018): 1–44.
32. Paul François, ed., “Le vin de Rome,” Pallas: Revue d’études Antiques 53 (2000): 11–140; Michael Beer, Taste or Taboo: Dietary Choices in Antiquity (Devon, UK: Prospect Books, 2010); and Danielle Gourevitch and Gilles Demigneux, “Two Historical Case Histories of Acute Alcoholism in the Roman Empire,” in Disabilities in Roman Antiquity, ed. Christian Laes, Chris Goodey, and M. Lynn Rose (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013), 73–87.
33. Jacques Jouanna, “Le vin et la médecine dans la Grèce ancienne,” Revue des Études Grecques 109, no. 2 (1996): 410–434; and Jacques Jouanna and Laurence Villard, Vin et santé en Grèce ancienne: Actes du colloque organisé à l’Université de Rouen et à Paris (Paris, France: Ecole française d’Athénes, 2002).
34. Hanneke Wilson, Wine & Words in Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 2003); and Zinon Papakonstantinou, “Wine and Wine Drinking in the Homeric World,” L’antiquité classique 78 (2009): 1–24.
35. Salviat, “Le vin de Thasos.” François Salviat and André Tchernia, “Les appellations d’origine dans l’antiquité grecque et romaine,” in Vins, Vignerons, et Buveurs de l’Antiquité, 217–225.
36. Kourakou-Dragona, Vine and Wine; and Stavroula Kourakou-Dragona,“Pramnios Wine and Pramnian Wines,” in Of Vines and Wines. The Production and Consumption of Wine in Anatolian Civilizations through the Ages, ed. Lucienne Thys-Şenocak (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2017), 83–91.
37. Billiard, La vigne dans l’antiquité; Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine; Tchernia and Brun, Le vin romain antique; Paul François, “Le vin de Rome,” Pallas: Revue d’études antiques 53 (2000): 11–140; Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z; Brun et al., Le Vin: Nectar des Dieux; Thurmond, Food Processing in Classical Rome; Thurmond, Vines to Wines; François Salviat and André Tchernia, Vins, Vignerons, et Buveurs de l’Antiquité (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2013); Donahue, Food and Drink in Antiquity; and see also DimitriVan Limbergen, “Vinum Picenum and Oliva Picena. Wine and oil presses in Central Adriatic Italy between the Late Republic and the Early Empire. Evidence and Problems,” BABesch 86 (2011): 71–94.
38. Thibaut Boulay, “Wine Appreciation in Ancient Greece,” in A Companion to Food in the Ancient World, ed., John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau, 273–282 (Chicester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
39. Interactive Ancient Mediterranean Project (electronic resource), created in 1998: This material originated on the Interactive Ancient Mediterranean It has been copied, reused or redistributed under the terms of IAM's fair use policy. Copyright 1998, Interactive Ancient Mediterranean. This freely usable image comes from the website of the Ancient World Mapping Center
40. Purcell, “Wine and Wealth in Ancient Italy”; and Unwin, Wine and the Vine, 124–128.
41. Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine, 11–19.
42. Vernon L. Singleton, “An Enologist’s Commentary on Ancient Wines,” in McGovern et al., Origins and Ancient History, 67–77.
