Roman Wine

[Pertinax]

For re-enactment ,I am aware that the a-Viking /Saxon groups utilise baked leather "bottles" and canteens .These are usually made from heavy cow hide and once baked require no further treatment . I assume that pigs bladders/stomachs must have been a commonplace product in the Italian economy and inflated intestine can be pretty tough as well , perhaps AD can help us out?

 

remember this gallery post?

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=391

 

the same heavy hide is used and the same weight of stitching, the baking process makes them tough as old boots.

Edited April 27, 2006 by Pertinax

[Andrew Dalby]

Corinth was , I believe , known for two quality exports , wine and courtesans ( oh and good architecture but thats a more abstract consumable). So did the Corinthians not know or not have a supply of sorrel herb to mitigate their bibulous excesses?

 

Pantagathus what was the optimun wine skin our noble ancestors favoured? Would any old bladder do the job?

 

There's never any sorrel around when you need it. In our garden, the slugs seem to get most of it. Perhaps they need it even more than I do.

 

As for wine skins, two types are recorded, so far as I can think.

 

A. The personal goat skin. This is what Odysseus was carrying when he landed in the Cyclops's cave, and lucky he was, because there was enough in it to intoxicate the Cyclops. The rest is history (or mythology).

 

B. The mass distribution ox skin. The skin of a whole ox, tied off at the feet, I'm not sure whether you fill it and empty it from the neck end or the other end: does anyone know?

 

The Latin word for an ox skin is culleus, which is therefore also a Latin measure of liquid volume: 1 culleus = 20 amphorae = 960 sextarii (525 litres, 115 UK gallons, 139 US gallons). I worked all this out for my translation of Cato On Farming. Cato, who was no fool when it came to portion control, gives careful instructions for how to measure out a precise culleus of wine when a farmer is selling wine in bulk. And the answer is not 'just fill up my ox skin', because your ox might well have been fatter than the Roman standard.

 

The ox skin was transported (naturally) on an ox cart. Imagine those oxen thinking to themselves, as they pull the great sagging thing along a Roman road, 'When will it be my turn for a skinful?'

[Pertinax]

on sorrell (particularly wood sorrell):

"An excellent conserve, Conserva Ligulae, used to be made by beating the fresh leaves up with three times their weight of sugar and orange peel, and this was the basis of the cooling and acid drink that was long a favourite remedy in malignant fevers and scurvy"

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=692.

 

 

personal goat skin eh? I knew my wine boxes were too small.

Edited April 29, 2006 by Pertinax

[Gini]

what methods did the Romans use for wine making I would think that would influence the wine more than the vines used. wasn't a sweetish wine quite popular with them? No reason for saying this - just impression

[Andrew Dalby]

what methods did the Romans use for wine making I would think that would influence the wine more than the vines used. wasn't a sweetish wine quite popular with them? No reason for saying this - just impression

 

You can read Roman advice on winemaking in Columella's and Varro's books on farming. The answer to your question, I think, is that various details would influence the result more than the basic process, which had to be the same everywhere till modern chemists got their hands on it: i.e. you put the juice in a vat and keep praying to Bacchus (yes, it happens whether you pray or not, but he may help to influence the quality of the result).

 

The details are partly the storage issues, partly the timetable: when do you transfer to closed containers? When do you decant and sell it? What are your containers made with? What are they sealed with? How does the buyer transport it and store it? The resin or pitch used to waterproof and seal the containers certainly made a difference to the flavour, just as oak barrels make a difference now. The goatskins and ox-skins must have made a difference.

 

Because Greek wines were transported over a long distance to Rome, there is evidence to show that they were stabilised before sale. This is where your sweet wine comes in. Nowadays it's done by adding alcohol (the result being sherry, port, etc.). These are at the end of the long tradition that began with the Greek wines that were specially made for export. They had boiled-down must (grape syrup) added to them, so that there would be residual sugar when fermentation was finished. Result: Greek wines were sweet and strong. You only drank a little of them, at the end of the meal.

[Gaius Octavius]

Whilst clicking away on this site, I adventured into a place called: 'rogueclassicism'. It had an article from something called: "Centre Daily Times", from the spelling, I take it to be a British paper. The following is a round up of what it held:

 

In Roman Times:

 

Grape vines were positioned so that they grew up the trunks of trees. Grapes were picked over-ripe and thus produced a sweet wine. The wine was white rather than red. (Guesss that they didn't want to stomp on red skins - no offence intended.) The wine was horrible by our standards (I guess that our palates changed over the years.), something like Retsina or Madiera. (Personally, I like Madiera.) These two might be mixed half and half. Falerian was aged for 10 years and Surrentine for 25 years. Both tasted like Madiera. (How does he know and then, what was the point of ageing the stuff?) Muscato, Lambrusco (The wine of Don Camillo and me.), and a white Trebbiano by Citra (Expensive; $6.00 for 1 1/2 liters but what the heck, I like it.), are supposed to be the equivalent of Roman wines. 'Sapa', a grape juice, was boiled down in LEAD pots (Nah!) and added to the wine. This might have accounted for Caligula and Nero and the idiots pounding the pavements of Rome.

 

I must admit to being a barbarian. I have been known to drink wine, whiskey, beer, water and Pepsi Cola with anything. Yes, including Jello and coffee.

[Primus Pilus]

I split off most of this topic and sent it here as it really had little to do with Roman Wine.

 

(this posted as both a notice and a thread bump)

[Pertinax]

A lovely quote from Carcopino (Daily Life) , "That those who consumed wines blended with resin and pitch pine neat(which could be quite a range of resinous saps) , were considered abnormal and vicious , a mark for the contumely"(Martial I believe) . He further suggests a minimun one third water to wine, as a "seemly" proportion.

[Kosmo]

I had tried resinato in Greece. Quite a strong pine taste. I did not like it.

[Andrew Dalby]

I had tried resinato in Greece. Quite a strong pine taste. I did not like it.

I think retsina is great when picnicking under a hot Greek sun, and ideal with octopus salad. Not sure whether Dioscorides had already pointed this out, possibly not. Retsina has to be chilled, though. And somehow it's never so good when you bring it home.

 

I also believe that on this little detail Carcopino's remark says more about Carcopino's tastes than about ancient Romans. (Mind you, Carcopino, as a rule, is very good.)

Edited July 26, 2006 by Andrew Dalby

[Jasminia]

I had tried resinato in Greece. Quite a strong pine taste. I did not like it.

I think retsina is great when picnicking under a hot Greek sun, and ideal with octopus salad. Not sure whether Dioscorides had already pointed this out, possibly not. Retsina has to be chilled, though. And somehow it's never so good when you bring it home.

 

Flavors of retsina varies wildly across Greece. Some taste like you're licking a tree, and others like a little piece of heaven. My favorites were the locally fermented retsinas in Herakleion and Athens (the latter was a local family with their groves in Xora). "Commercial" retsinas are way too harsh for my tastes -- local retsinas, made in smaller batches, are infinitely better.

 

Some here may be interested in Patrick McGovern's excellent book "Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture", which traces wines back 7000 years. In it, he explains that retsina was found in pithoi on Crete, which belonged "to the final destruction level of [Myrtos-Phournou Koryphe] during the Early Minoan IIB period, ca. 2200 B.C." (247) and that "winemaking may go back earlier at the site." (250)

 

Another great book, more in line with the topic of this site, is Stuart Fleming's "Vinum: The Story of Roman Wine", which offered a revised calculation on wine consumption to 19.2 million US gallons, or 27.4 US gallons per capita, based on a population of 700,000 people, not including slaves. (59) That's a lot of wine

[Gaius Octavius]

Welcome aboard Jasminia.

[Pertinax]

I am presently experimenting with the use of an "ordinary" off the shelf wine/sherry as a base for a workable medicinal tincture. The experiment is to re-create an approximation of ordinary medicines available to to a medicus in 1st and 2nd C AD Britain.I understand the principles of maceration to produce the base tincture of selected herbs. I will be starting with two obvious choices, Yarow and Horehound, the former an attested and commonplace vulnery the latter a Legionary cough medicine for wet climes.

As I have stated in my blog this type of medicine matures to potency and effectivness , like a wine, and can be stored and shipped without deterioration. My question to those learned in the lore of the vine is: which modern wine/sherry/spirit would you think reflects an approximation of a plausible base for such medicines?

Remember the finds of cough medicine ( in Britain) were of full sized amphorae caulked with pitch in the usual manner,so I anticipate use of a roughish vintage for the common soldiry. Any thoughts learned members?

[Andrew Dalby]

I am presently experimenting with the use of an "ordinary" off the shelf wine/sherry as a base for a workable medicinal tincture. The experiment is to re-create an approximation of ordinary medicines available to to a medicus in 1st and 2nd C AD Britain.I understand the principles of maceration to produce the base tincture of selected herbs. I will be starting with two obvious choices, Yarow and Horehound, the former an attested and commonplace vulnery the latter a Legionary cough medicine for wet climes.

As I have stated in my blog this type of medicine matures to potency and effectivness , like a wine, and can be stored and shipped without deterioration. My question to those learned in the lore of the vine is: which modern wine/sherry/spirit would you think reflects an approximation of a plausible base for such medicines?

Remember the finds of cough medicine ( in Britain) were of full sized amphorae caulked with pitch in the usual manner,so I anticipate use of a roughish vintage for the common soldiry. Any thoughts learned members?

Very interesting question, Pertinax. So far as I can remember, Owbridge's Lung Tonic (whether or not it contained horehound) tasted not so very different from a very dark sweet Pedro Ximenez sherry. These sherries tend to come a bit expensive, though: if I open a bottle of that, I drink it (nice and slowly), I don't go adding herbs to it. I admire your dedication to duty. A cheaper version of something very similar would be the cooking Malaga available in supermarkets here at about 4 euros a bottle. In any case, my guess is that strong and sweet would be the taste to aim at for your basic wine, though, as you know, in Roman times the sweetness would have come entirely from the addition of concentrated must (defrutum, sapa), not from stopping the fermentation with alcohol.

[Gaius Octavius]

In the 1940's and 1950's there was a cough medicine (in the U.S.) called chericol (?). It was cherry flavored and contained codene. Tasted good and worked. Perhaps, its formulation might be of help in your quest. A cursory search on the web produced nothing of value - but then that is for me.