ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WINES

Modern winemaking owes much to the ancient Mediterranean world, where wine first achieved a place as a dietary staple. In antiquity, wine was central to religious functions and private social gatherings, a legacy bequeathed to the Christian church and Roman secular elites that they then passed on to the medieval world and thence to modern Europe. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans added to a rich wine matrix that still influences taste and expression today.

Vitis vinifera originated in the Caucasus region, and by the Bronze Age (c. 3500–1100 BC) had spread to the Aegean and Mediterranean regions. Under the care of early Phoenician growers, at least by the ninth century BC, fine wines were produced along the coast of present-day Lebanon and Israel and traded widely throughout the Middle East in distinctive two-handled clay jars called amphorae. These were commonly sealed with clay, lime, or gypsum and lined with pitch, which allowed wine to keep for a considerable period, as the porosity of the clay permitted gentle oxidation over time. During the period of extensive Phoenician contacts and colonization throughout the Mediterranean (twelfth through sixth centuries BC), colonists spread wine-grape production to North Africa and Spain, and probably into parts of southern France as well.

Greek colonies began in the eighth century BC in mainland Italy, Sicily, and southern France and around the Black Sea coast, and Greek vine husbandry preferences and skills spread to these regions. By the Classical period (fifth century BC), the Greeks had developed a technical vocabulary for wine and thoroughly enjoyed wines of different types and origins. Wine drinking formed the centerpiece of the Classical Greek symposium, the gathering of the intelligentsia for entertaining, social networking, and political debates, and was drunk by all members of society.

As Greek influence spread, their wine tastes and habits followed. The pan-Mediterranean wine trade was especially active in the Hellenistic period (fourth through first centuries BC) that followed the Macedonian and Greek conquest of the Middle East. It is during this era that the Greeks began to rationalize and systematize agricultural improvements. The screw press, an efficient device initially developed in the Hellenistic period, has remained little changed into modern times. The remains of a fourth-century BC shipwreck contained not only amphorae but also grapevine cuttings. The desire and ability to ship vine stock around the ancient world shows the Greeks’ dedication to viticulture, but also hints at the vast spread of different ancient varieties over much of Europe between the first century BC and the fifth century AD.

The best ancient Greek wines were those from the islands of Kos and Thasos, while the most popular vintages came from on and around Rhodes. The wine amphorae from such active production centers bore control stamps that ensured the jars were standard in size and that their origin could be guaranteed and appropriately taxed. The former Phoenician colony of Carthage in North Africa also developed a thriving wine industry and exported its production to Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and Spain.

By the time of Pliny the Elder in the first century AD, the Romans had developed a taste for Greek wines and developed their own distinctive wine types and local grape varieties. Roman merchants traded Italian wines extensively throughout Gaul (France), and it is likely, but remains to be proved, that many old French varieties came from Italy and farther east with Roman conquest and colonization.

While it is difficult to state with precision which modern cultivars are most closely related to ancient wine grapes, there are some descriptions of popular wines. Varieties known under the name Apianis are believed by some to be close relatives of Fiano, which today is witnessing a commercial revival. Falernian wine, a beverage famous in Italy for centuries and served at the table of Roman emperors, was sought after around the Mediterranean world and traded as far away as Arabia and India. A grape called Aminean rendered sweet, highly alcoholic wine that could be kept for years, and it probably became the most commonly grown variety in the ancient Mediterranean. Like famous varieties of today, it was known by name in the marketplace and sold for about four times the value of common wines.

Wine was a universal beverage drunk by all adults, and though women were discouraged from drinking, they also enjoyed it. Wine was customarily drunk mixed with water—to drink it neat in Greece or Rome was considered barbaric. Adding honey to it was fashionable. Modern imbibers would also find strange the tendency to resinate or heavily salt wines, generally by a suffusion of seawater, in order to stabilize them for transport. Raisin wine pressed from sun-dried grapes was another popular type of wine in the Roman Empire. In addition, wine was a common medicine; certain potent vintages were viewed as particularly helpful in digestive complaints.

The ability of the vine to flourish over a wide range of conditions, the pleasure wine offered, and the array of its uses meant that there was enormous demand. Since the masses of the city of Rome alone needed as much as 75 million liters (the equivalent of 8 million cases) of undiluted wine per year to fulfill their basic consumption, it is easy to see why Italian viticulture flourished during the empire. Estate vineyards were geared toward the markets that the thriving cities of the empire provided. While the average individual Roman vineyard block was fairly small (three acres or so), large estates had scores or even hundreds of such discreet blocks, planted with different varieties and spread over large areas to minimize the potential damage of pests, hail, and disease. Vineyards focused on high-volume production. Wine presses found in excavation in Israel reveal complex installations designed for speedy processing; some of these gargantuan presses held as much as 60,000 liters of must.

In the third century AD, Rome’s economic and political woes caused disruptions to viniculture, a situation exacerbated by the barbarian invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries. Cultivation survived in Gaul, Italy, and Spain, but the famous vintages, such as Falernian, fell on hard times. Most northern barbarians favored beer, although many came to appreciate wine. Nevertheless, Western wine exports dissolved and vineyards declined in the fourth through sixth centuries. By then, upper-class tastes had changed to favor those wines then in fashion in the imperial court at Constantinople—primarily strong white wines from Gaza and Ascalon on the southern Palestinian coast. The arrival of Islam ended this golden age for Eastern wines, and the West took centuries to recover its preeminent skills in winemaking.

By Michael J. Decker in "The Business of Wine - An Encyclopedia", edited by Geralyn Brostrom and Jack Brostrom, Greenwood Press, USA, 2009, excerpts pp. 5-7. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.