Fine wine or Goop?

[CiceroD]

My family are all winos. They buy juice from the local vinyard and we make it in the basement. So I have a little experience making wine. The rule of thumb Ive always heard is "Keep it away from the air." If this is not done or too much air is left on the fermenting wine, the whole batch can quickly turn to a nasty vinegar not worth keeping. Believe me pouring five galleons of the stuff down a drain is nauseating!

 

Today we prevent this using "Airlocks" which seal off a carboy and allow CO2 to escape w/o letting in air

How did the Romans keep the wine post fermenting vat? I assume wineskins.

 

more importantly did they filter off the gross lees (seeds skins) et cetera?

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

My family are all winos. They buy juice from the local vinyard and we make it in the basement. So I have a little experience making wine. The rule of thumb Ive always heard is "Keep it away from the air." If this is not done or too much air is left on the fermenting wine, the whole batch can quickly turn to a nasty vinegar not worth keeping. Believe me pouring five galleons of the stuff down a drain is nauseating!

 

Today we prevent this using "Airlocks" which seal off a carboy and allow CO2 to escape w/o letting in air

How did the Romans keep the wine post fermenting vat? I assume wineskins.

 

more importantly did they filter off the gross lees (seeds skins) et cetera?

 

Taken from Johnstons Private Life of the Romans.

 

The making of the wine took place usually in September; the season varied with the soil and the climate. It was anticipated by a festival, the vīnālia rūstica, celebrated on the nineteenth of August. Precisely what the festival meant the Romans themselves did not fully understand, perhaps, but it was probably intended to secure a favorable season for the gathering of the grapes. The general process of making the wine differed little from that familiar to us in Bible stories and still practiced in modern times. After the grapes were gathered, they were first trodden with the bare feet and then pressed in the prēlum or torcular. The juice as it came from the press was called mustum (vīnum), "new (wine)," and was often drunk unfermented, as sweet cider is now. It could be kept sweet from vintage to vintage by being sealed in a jar smeared within and without with pitch and immersed for several weeks in cold water or buried in moist sand. It was also preserved by evaporation over a fire; when it was reduced one-half in this way, it became a grape jelly (dēfrutum) and was used as a basis for various beverages and for other purposes.

 

Fermented wine (vīnum) was made by collecting the mustum in huge vat-like jars. One of these was large enough to hide a man and held a hundred gallons or more. These were covered with pitch within and without and partially buried in the ground in cellars or vaults (vīnāriae cellae), in which they remained permanently. After they were nearly filled with the mustum, they were left uncovered during the process of fermentation, which lasted under ordinary circumstances about nine days. They were often tightly sealed, and opened only when the wine required attention or was to be removed. The cheaper wines were used directly from the dōlia; but the choicer kinds were drawn off after a year into smaller jars (amphorae), clarified and even "doctored" in various ways, and finally stored in depositories often entirely distinct from the cellars. A favorite place was a room in the upper story of the house, where the wine was aged by the heat rising from a furnace or even by the smoke from the hearth. The amphorae were often marked with the name of the wine, and the names of the consuls for the year in which they were filled.

Edited September 9, 2007 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[Pertinax]

Ordinary country wine was also the main medium for transportable liquid medicines , I have mentioned elsewhere the straightforward making of a medicinal tincture by maceration of chosen herbs in a wine base. The longevity of such medicines is excellent, they mature and potentiate with the wine. Survivals of horehound herb in wine , as a cough medicine are attested in Britain (rightly so Marrubium is an excellent expectorant for troops getting chesty coughs in a damp bogy place). Jashemski (Pompeiian Herbal), lists finds of dried herbs and others found as a preserved residue from damaged amphorae.

When I was asking AD about a suitable modern substitute to replicate the Roman "taste" he suggested a sweetish cooking grade Madeira (if my memory serves me correctly..does it AD?) .

[CiceroD]

But How did they seal amphorae?

 

With pitch as you mentioned? or perhaps wax?

[Pertinax]

But How did they seal amphorae?

 

With pitch as you mentioned? or perhaps wax?

 

Apparently the mix is pitch , mixed with oil and lime. The latter additives improving the seal. I dont know the technology/chemistry here , lime to give a clean surface, oil to fuse with the pitch? Wheres NN he could help!.

[Nephele]

The making of the wine took place usually in September; the season varied with the soil and the climate...

 

GPM, I think you forgot to mention that entry you offered came from Johnston's Private Life of the Romans.

 

CiceroD, have you ever tried making wine from fruit other than grapes? According to Davis' A Day in Old Rome, the ancient Romans also made beverages from fermented quince juice and mulberries.

 

Davis mentions vintages that were "treasured by the epicures as if worth their weight in gold," and one such vintage was bottled in 121 BCE and called Vina Opimia. "By Hadrian's day the last drops of this precious liquor" were gone, but connoisseurs still talked about it. Now, that's a bottle of wine I'd like to be able to bring back from the past, if I could time-travel.

 

As for how the amphorae -- or glass jars -- were sealed... Davis says that gypsum was used. Although the seals Pertinax mentions I can more easily imagine.

 

-- Nephele

Edited September 8, 2007 by Nephele

[CiceroD]

CiceroD, have you ever tried making wine from fruit other than grapes? According to Davis' A Day in Old Rome, the ancient Romans also made beverages from fermented quince juice and mulberries.

 

 

-- Nephele

 

We havent tried that but I know someone who makes the best fruit wines I ever tasted

 

I wonder,did they make cider?

 

Its pity that the Romans didn't have any Labrusca grapes Like Concord. They probably could have planted vinyards on the sunny side of Hadrian's Wall!! People complain about the "foxy" taste but I enjoy it. Any I still think they would have prefered that to Celtic Beer!

[Nephele]

I wonder,did they make cider?

 

Davis mentions the ancient Romans having had cider, as well.

 

Its pity that the Romans didn't have any Labrusca grapes Like Concord. They probably could have planted vinyards on the sunny side of Hadrian's Wall!! People complain about the "foxy" taste but I enjoy it. Any I still think they would have prefered that to Celtic Beer!

 

My back garden is slowly being taken over by the Concord grape vines I've got growing there. Plus, my neighbor has Concord grapes, too, and they've grown over the wall that divides our two properties and are intertwining. I've never tried making homemade wine, and the grapes I get aren't particularly tasty. Is that the "foxy" taste, you're talking about?

 

Maybe I'll try making some wine this fall. Can you recommend a good "how to" book? (But I'm not stomping barefoot on any grapes!)

 

 

-- Nephele

[CiceroD]

The "Foxy" taste refers to the "Fox" grape like concord and niagara

 

Americans would call it a "Grapy" taste since we're all given welch's grape juice as kids (made from concord grapes)

Try nephele to imagine the taste of grape juice..........thats what it tastes like

Europeans would probably call it a "weird" taste (I have some German relatives and thats what they say)

 

But your never going to make "fine wine" from it. Thats why Concord is used primarily for Jelly and preserves

 

as far as a book goes try From Vines to Wines by Jeff Cox

Edited September 9, 2007 by CiceroD

[ASCLEPIADES]

as far as a book goes try From Vines to WineSs by Jeff Cox

Salve!

 

I don't know you, but I found C-D's link inactive.

 

The following one from amazon.com might be an alternative.

 

BTW, it seems like a nice book.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

GPM, I think you forgot to mention that entry you offered came from Johnston's Private Life of the Romans.

 

Sorry Nephele it was a genuine mistake but it's now been rectified.

[Pertinax]

It struck me that my previous note regarding lime might mean that substance had two functions in wine making, helping to seal a porous surface and as an alkalising medium for acidic wine .The presence of lime traces in the amphorae might be solely due to its use as an alkaline medium.

I found this interesting resume:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/72p67180lrx40258/

Obviously other people are just as obsessive as we are here!

[ASCLEPIADES]

It struck me that my previous note regarding lime might mean that substance had two functions in wine making, helping to seal a porous surface and as an alkalising medium for acidic wine .The presence of lime traces in the amphorae might be solely due to its use as an alkaline medium.

I found this interesting resume:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/72p67180lrx40258/

Obviously other people are just as obsessive as we are here!

 

Gratiam habeo for the link, but I can't access it even after filling up the registering form.

 

Maybe you can upload at least the abstract...

 

In any case, thanks in advance!

[Pertinax]

A couple of precis:

 

1.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Here's something I found on the Archaeology website, it was found on an archaeological dive in the Black Sea..

 

 

 

Our amphora's were sealed with pine bark stoppers and a coat of resin. After 1,100 years, the resin still remains around the mouth of this amphora.

 

Take a look at the full article.

 

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features.../dispatch3.html