Roman wine

The Roman belief that wine was a daily necessity made it ubiquitous. It was readily available to slaves, peasants and aristocrats, men and women alike. Ancient Roman wine was a daily staple, not a luxury.

It was cloudy, highly acidic, and stored in large clay jars called dolia. With no modern preservation methods, Romans heavily diluted it with water, spices, or honey. Romans fermented and aged wine in large, partially buried earthenware clay vessels. The porous clay and egg-like shapes allowed for micro-oxygenation, which gave the wine grassy, nutty, and dried fruit flavors.

Conditum Paradoxum was a popular sweet, spiced wine made by boiling wine with honey, black pepper, laurel, saffron, and mastic. Posca was a drink for soldiers and the lower classes made by mixing water with soured wine or vinegar. Premium wines were highly prized and expensive. Falernian was a sweet, strong white wine that was the most expensive drink in the empire. Produced on the slopes of Mount Falernus (modern-day Monte Massico) in the Campania/Lazio region of Italy, it was a symbol of luxury for the Roman elite.

Falernian wine was a luxury product. A standard half-litre amphora cost about 1 sestertius. (25% of a Roman labourer’s daily wage) Premium, well-aged vintages were very expensive. The wine trade drew merchants to do business with tribes native to Gaul and Germania, bringing Roman influences to these regions before the arrival of the Roman military. Evidence of the trade and the significant ancient wine economy is found through amphorae – the ceramic jars used to store and transport wine and other goods. One of the most important wine centres in the Roman world was Pompeii, located on the Campanian coast. An expanse of farms and vineyards covered the slopes of Vesuvius, exploiting fertile soil to produce fine wines.