Were the Greek, Etruscan or Roman wines really like those of today? Is there any way we can reduce the time gap and compare the two? And the wine made by an Etruscan, was it really something like ours? There is considerable skepticism on this point, not only because we have no “actual” samples but because “wine” as we know it is the fruit of later methods. There is then really no answer to questions concerning the organoleptic characteristics of this wine. We can only speculate by turning to the agricultural treatises in which the vinification techniques are described, and at least here we have something on which to base our suppositions. We have nothing regarding the Etruscans and the considerable Greek corpus has been lost. The situation changes when we come to the Romans because numerous writers dealt with agriculture. The most important is unquestionably Lucius Junius Columella who gives us a fair amount of information on the Roman oenological practices in his fundamental “De re rustica”. With this as our point of departure we can attempt to reconstruct the taste of ancient wine.

 The characteristics of Roman wine

“Since the Romans loved sweet things, the vintage was delayed as long as possible. The poets Virgil and Martial agree in affirming that the grape clusters were to be left on the vine up to November, or until they were “stiffened by frost”. The Greeks used to pick them still slightly green (perhaps to retain a high acidity), and leave them in the sun for three or four days to wither thus increasing the concentration of sugar. Crete was known for its custom of twisting the grape stalks so the sap would stop flowing, and leaving them on the plant to shrivel. These concentrated wines obtained from shriveled grapes were called passim: today in Italy the term used is passiti.

For stronger and sweeter wines, the must was also boiled which reduced and concentrated the volume. The generic term for these wines was defrutum, but there were also different names for the various degrees of concentration.

A third method for sweetening the wine consisted simply in adding honey, as much as 250 gr. per liter. The result was a sticky beverage called mulsum, which was consumed with antipasti as a gustatio, that is an aperitif. The Romans had also found a way to prepare a product they called mosto permanente (which Germans now call Süssreserve). Fermentation was arrested by immerging the amphorae in cold water (either from a well or from the sea) where they stayed until winter. This sempre mustum was another way of sweetening wines that were considered too dry.

(H. Johnson, Wine, History, Traditions, Culture

 the nineteenth century and wine

The Italian wines of the nineteenth century were not famous for their quality. An exceptional witness to this situation is Cyrus Redding, author of a best-seller on wine: “A History and Description of modern Wines” first published in 1833 and reprinted, in up-dated versions, about twenty times until 1876.

In its third edition (1851) his judgments of Italian wine are merciless, with few exceptions. According to Redding, wine was for domestic use and an excellent wine was the result of the care the vine-dresser lavished on vineyards for wine he himself hoped to drink. For Redding one of the reasons for this backwardness lay in the fact that the Italians cultivated their vineyards in rows of high vines whereas in some parts of Piedmont, Tuscany and in the Naples area, the vines were kept low and pruned. However he believed that it was not this that determined the low quality of most Italian wines. He blamed the oppressive political systems, reflecting that both the French and Spanish wines registered a constant improvement (unknown to the Italians) because they had a wide foreign market. In short, for Redding oenological improvement depended on the market. Was this his final judgment? Only 12 out of 440 pages in the 1851 edition are dedicated to Italy. The author had no knowledge of Barolo or Barbera, he hardly mentioned Monferrato and passed over Chianti (speaking ill of it). He praised wines from the region of Campania: “Lacrima Christi” (Naples), the Greco, Asprino, and the wine produced in Capri.

With regards to the Italian wine industry Redding said that there was no excuse for the way in which the Italians made wine, with the grapes carelessly stockpiled after they were harvested – ripe and unripe, sound and rotten – all together in containers that had not been cleaned since the previous vintage. Nor was any care taken with the fermentation process. However the quality of the famous Est, Est, Est from Montefiascone and of Orvieto wine was considered passable (together with Moscatello, Aleatico and Vernaccia). This statement about the carelessness of the Italian vinification process was unfortunately an accurate description and the negative results were due to the poor procedures inherited from a past which had no knowledge of chemical and microbiological factors.

THE PEOPLE’S WINE

In ancient Rome the “popolino” (the masses), the have-nots and the soldiers clearly could not afford the wine described by Columella or Pliny. They therefore resorted to surrogates such as posca (watered vinegar) or lorca (a weak watery beverage prepared by steeping the pomace in water and fermenting the liquid thus obtained).

Producing surrogates for wine continued for a long time. Up to 1950 what was known as vinello (also mescetta or vinetta) was drunk in the Italian countryside. It consisted of water which contained the residue of pressing, a watery acidulous, rose-colored beverage.

“Real” wine was generally sold or saved for special celebrations.