Roman Wine
 

Could anyone point me in the direction of some detailed sources on Roman wine? Particularly the kinds of wine that would've been available in the provinces.

Any help would be deeply appreciated:cool:

I remember this thread, see Belisarius' answer in which he provides a nice link on the types of ancient wine.

http://www.historum.com/art-cultural...alcoholic.html

Am I right in believing it was watered down for consumption by the Romans?

Yes, it was normally watered down one to four with water. Sometimes it was watered down with honey, to make the drink mulsum, which was drunk before meals, or with the lighter courses during them. If spices were added as well as honey, the drink was known as conditum.

@Salah ad-Din: in addition to the books mentioned, there is also an extensive entry about wine in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

Unwatered Greek and Roman wine was about the strength of modern whisky. They liked to water it down to the strength of lager. According to the Iliad ancients used to feed wine to their babies, so some watering was necessary!!

On a theological note, the "vinegar" which the Gospels tell us was fed to Jesus on the cross was actually unmixed wine.

My understanding is that fermentation won't allow for more than 20% alchohol and Whiskey is more like 40% or more. I do know that the ancients did water down their wine, but thought that it had to do more with flavor or conserving wine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/dining/28curious.html

Interesting. I thought the Romans gave Jesus vinegar as a form of sadistic torture.

Yeah, I'm not sure where I got whisky from, just some half-remembered thing I read once! Roman wine could be strengthened after fermentation, either by adding turpentine (in the case of some types of "conditura" wine), or by chilling to concentrate the alcohol, but maybe 40% was ambitious!


Wild Bill - the fact that it was offered on a sponge on a stick may also be significant, since (as any reader of "The Rotten Romans" will know), sponges on sticks were used to wipe people's bottoms with in the Roman world!!!