About Wine

Da: La Storia nel Piatto - Chapter 1 Qui vinum bibit, multum dormit  Qui multum dormit, non peccat  Ergo Qui vinum bibit, non peccat For vines references are very detailed and ancient.  We thanks to Homer who describes in the Iliade how Patroclus prepares wine to his cousin Achilles with two cups of spring water (one to three dilution) and flavored with honey and resin. The ancient wine was strong. It was not safe to drink it pure or the Scythian way as was used to do both Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Tiberius and also the Galatians. Generally, more cautiously, it was mixed with water. The dilutions used were one to five (three parts water to two of wine) and one to three (two parts of water to one of wine). The dilution one to two (half water and half wine) was considered dangerous. Plutarch relates to a dilution one to four, very watered and considered appropriate to sages and magistrates. In Odyssey there are excellent citations of wine inebriating properties: Ulysses gives wine to Polyphemus to defeat him. Wine is also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgameš dating back to 2000 BC. The Torah garantees that Noah planted the first vineyard and gives us news about the first major documented hangover of the Jewish Christian history, the first of many that certainly followed. The Torah says that  Noah just disembarked from the Ark, [...] planted a vineyard, drank wine, got drunk and went to sleep naked in his tent. So, we are indirectly informed that on Ark Noah sailed not only animals and that both, viticulture and winemaking existed before the Flood. In some inscriptions, dating eighth century BC, the kingdom of Urartu, an empire of the Middle East that stretched from Azerbaijan to the upper reaches of the Tigris river, the Valley of Ararat, the montain where the Ark went aground is called the Land of Vineyards. The inhabitants of territories of the South Caucasus might really have been the first to cultivate grapes and produce wine. Already 7,000 years ago over there they had found that the wild grapes, left in heavy clay jars buried in the ground turned into a scented and invigorating liquid: the first wine of History. Archaeological excavations have shown that seeds of what seems to be cultivated grapes (that have different form from the wild variety) and dated about 6000 BC, have been found in Georgia (A Short History of Wine - Rod Phillips, London 2001). Apollonius of Rhodes, Strabo and other authors tell us that in those areas grapes have been cultivated for the first time, the Odyssey tells about the fragrant and sparkling wines of those regions and even in the Argonautica Apollonius Rhodius says that in the palace of king Aieti, father of Medea and Circe, the Argonauts found a fountain flowing with wine. An interesting fact supporting these connections between Transcaucasian plains and viticulture is the large number of indigenous grape varieties identified and cataloged in Georgia: 524 really a  big number compared with the about 60 of Italy Italian and a little less of France (Ampelography Georgia curated by Ketskhoveli, Ramishvili and Tabidze, 1960).  It is a remarkable number especially considering that the italian territory is at least four times that of Georgia and that France is extended twice Italy. The number increases if we include to the whole area of the central Transcaucasus the two neighboring countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Studies underway in Georgia will finally lead to reconstruct the evolution of the vine botany and history of its spread in the Mediterranean. But compared with recent archaeological researches, some traditions still present in that areas tell us much more. In Southern Georgia, near the border with Armenia, were brought to light some prototypes of large jars dating from the Neolithic and certainly used to make and store wine. These big jars and other large vessels dated from the fourth and third centuries BC do not differ so much from those still used to these days by the local artisans making wine, the Kvevri, that are still buried exactly like those of 6000 years ago. Even Cato the Elder in his De Agri Cultura, describes precisely all details about their size, shape, thickness of the clay and explains also how to clean before the harvest these large vessels he called Dolia. This method to make wine is quite distinct from any modern method and with astonishment of European wine experts who are studying it and of the few foreigne winemakers (including the Friulian Josco Gravner from Gorizia) who decided to adopt it, the quality of the wines produced in this way is higher than that of the best modern wines. The great taste and aroma of this wine is due to the use of the grapes skins that should stay into the grape juice longer than we do today, a practice that implies grapes of very high quality and handled very accuratly. But certainly not less important is the fact that this type of vinification dont requires added yeast and even refrigeration during fermentation. This could perhaps lead to change some ideas that we had made about the wine in antiquity. The wine-making was practiced in amphorae (Dolia) certainly up to the first century BC when the first large wooden barrels appeared. Moreover Armenia has a special reputation for its wine distillates, the famous brandy that appealed so much to Winston Churchill, and contends with the island of Cyprus the primacy of owning the oldest vine in the world, the Arenì, dating perhaps back to 1000 BC and grown in the valley of the same name. In addition to production tools, presses, jars and other instruments, even the Transcaucasian consumption habits report to ancient custom of the Greek symposium: the Georgians in fact love to sing and dance during and especially after banquets accompanied by festive drinks, abundant and almost rituals. In Egypt, in the actual Iran and Iraq (the ancient Mesopotamia) have been found some small and not particularly referenced traces relating to wine. In fact, despite what we would be led to believe after looking the beautiful wall paintings of Egyptian tombs and the joyful scenes of harvest, wine making and tools and techniques related to it, the Egyptian wine was poor and low-alcohol. To avert decay it was mixed with additives at least disconcerting. The Greeks honored the vine tree protected by Dionysus, the youngest of the sons of Zeus and God of wine. Dionysus who grew up in the woods educated by Silenus, planted a vine and got drunk with the humor that flows from it. With his beautiful blue wavy hair and a dark cloak over the his strong shoulders taught men viticulture traveling the world on a chariot drawn by panthers, symbol of irrationality, and with a following procession of musicians, dancers, Bacchae and minor deities (so recites a Homeric hymn). In some legends this God, eternally young, is mild generating enthusiasm and benevolent to human afflictions thanks to the wine that gladdens hearts and freedoms from inhibition, but in other sagas he is cruel and violent: these are the two faces of the hangover. It is with the wine that makes glad the heart of human being that Jesus performed his first miracle at Cana and is still the wine that at the Last Supper he turns in his own blood, which is considered by Jews the seat of soul and life. It is not just the color, so close to that of real blood, to solicit symbolic images but also the energy and the transformation of consciousness caused by wine, other than beer and any other alcohol of potato, corn, barley or beet that men have ever produced and drunk. Many are the treatments to which wine was subjected, not all safe for the drinkerst, at that old times and even now. We must remember that there was no chemistry nor chemically pure elements. To limit the risk of spontaneous fermeantation during transport, and of a trasformation in vinegar (the real and natural product of the fermentation of the grape), were added to wine products and substances containing in large quantities those chemical elements which had been shown empirically to favor the desired result. Sometimes wine was mixed with sea water, lead dust (which was responsible for many poisoning effects), or tree resin like the one present in the wood of the barrels where today we store fine wines for aging and which the Greeks also used to seal the wine amphorae used for transport and that gave the wine its resin taste. But was not so rare to find even special hallucinogens dangerous to health, and forgeries, toxic substances, opiates or various toxins and other substances that could also lead to madness: It is really a very long list. In the Greek world Hesiod, poet of the seventh century BC, described in detail the winemaking practices in his work  Works and Days. Greeks contributed to diffuse viticolture in all country attained by their vessels as well or maybe even before the Phoenicians. In Malta, an island extremely important on trade routes of the ancient Phoenician and Carthaginian, in a village near the St. Pauli's Bay was discovered a real working farm, well preserved, with crushing tanks and jars to ferment and to store wine. After it has been colonized by Greeks, also the Italian peninsula become particularly suited to vine culture and wine production, good enough to be called by Herodotus Oenotria , the land of wine. The Romans also did hard work to spread viticulture and to support it, although in Rome greek wine continued to be considered the best of the ancient world and a a basis of comparison for judging the quality of all the other wines. Cato, Varro and others gave all their recipes for making greek wine. The price lists inside the Roman taverns was reporting various classifications of quality: Vinum bonum, Vinum modestum, Vinum sublime, Vinum excellente, Vinum insolitum, Vinum optimum. To Italy, however, there was also a thriving commercial trade of African wine. If I'm not wrong that traffic is never finished and several decades ago it was the cause of tensions and violent protests by French winemakers since Tunisian and Algerian wine was bottled in Italy and then passed in France under false european labels. The Greeks who in 600 BC founded Marseille, imported vines but they found in the South of France was local varieties already grown by Celtic-Ligurian inhabitants, a culture learned or perhaps introduced by the Etruscans. Celts always loved wine. Wine-making was later continued successfully also under the Romans: Pliny himself mentions some fine wines from these areas. We know, however, that the wine production of the territories of Transalpine Gaul, that is the South of France, had an abrupt halt in 92 AD by an edict of Emperor Domitian who erdered to pull out all the vines in Gaul to make way for crops of wheat. The cause of this decision officially was a famine but certaily there was also some commercial reason as the significant decrease of wine imports from the Italic territories due to the abundance and good quality of wine production in Gaul, self-sufficient to this area. Only 200 years later, when the edict was revoked, vines could be grown again. The vineyards of Gaul recovered the lost time and enjoyed special attention also under Frankish domination and during the Middle Ages they were preserved and cultivated by the monks of the many abbeys of which remains memory in many prestigious labels. In the French territories, the success of the culture of the vine often led to neglect cereals and chain to solicit different actions and laws of the rulers that while planting the vines in the gardens continued until 1600 to issue edicts similar to that of Domitian, who, fortunately, not were never seriously implemented. Many territories and many renowned wines, those in particular of some islands, as the Lesbian and Pramnio of Lesbos: Gloria ambrosia, drinks flowing over Olympus canteens and the Biblino scented, from Byblos in Lebanon cited by Archestratus of Gela. Were also excellent the wines of Kos, Naxos and those of the beautiful island of Ikaria where, according to the legend, Icarus fell becouse he was too close to the sun. I wonder if he had not accidentally drank too much wine ... The island of Cyprus, where the wine is produced, according to Hesiod, from before the thirteenth century BC and where viticulture is probably arrived from the Phoenicians, has excellent soil for the vine. It is an area that produce some very fine quality including the famous Commandaria (Κουμανδαρία), sweet raisin wine that is supposed to be one of the most ancient vines in the world and whose present name was given in the twelfth century by the Knights Templar. The island, as I have already mentioned, has managed to retain some of the older varieties never grafted with American vines not susceptible to phylloxera and is now very well-known manufacturer of labels. Santorini is also a priority area for the vines that volcanic soil naturally defended by phylloxera. Here grows an ancient and very small red grape, the Mavrotragano (Μαυροτράγανο) who risked extinction but survived thanks to the island's farmers who continued to grow it in small plots scattered in the territory and to produce from it a sweet wine for special occasions. Now both its cultivation and the numerous treatment it needs are under special attention because grapes reach maturity at different times and so it is often necessary to harvest and carry out many micro-vinification. The Phoenicians brought probably the culture of the vine in the Iberian Peninsula and taught winemaking to Celtiberi who lived there. Certainly the wines of Rioja and Xeres (from the Andalusian territory of the Phoenician city of Xera in the hinterland of the legendary Tarshish) have this reference. These wines were much appreciated in Rome and today they are the basis of delicious Sherry and Brandy. The Greeks were using an extensive vocabulary to indicate the wines characteristics  that today is not easy to translate correctly because we do not have the at disposition the wines of that time and also because we do not know exactly what aspects and elements were then considered notable, some aesthetic and others related to the flavor and fragrance. Black wine: melas (μέλας) Purple or blood; straw wine: leukos (λευκός); wine asprο austere (αυστερός); Cleaned and dry: xeròs (ξερός), agreeable: malakos (μαλακός), sweet glykèis (γλικέυς), scented: òzontis (όζοντης), light: leptos (λεπτός), full-bodied or heavy: pachèis (παχύς); warming: thermos (θερμός) wine without force: astevèsteros (ασθενέστερος). The old wine, fragrant and high gradation was still the favorite; his long life was without a doubt guaranteed because of the high alcohol content. Very apreciated for their wine were also some Italian areas: some territory of Campania, in central Italy, especially those of north of Caserta where they produced the Falerno  long aging as the wines of Caucasus, in the hills of Piedmont and those in Oltrepò Pavese and Piacenza, in the north of Italy, whose wines are named by Strabo who relates that as early as the 1st century BC here they used oak barrels larger than a house, a custom which spread around the world completely only in the second century AD. Here, near Rovescala, it was found one of the oldest glass bottles of wine. But also the territory of Friuli whose wines are mentioned so well by Pliny, the Rhaetian and the Paduan territory, and finally the valley polis cellae (valley of many cellars as was named in Middle Ages) that we now know as Valpolicella, always on the hills north of Venice. The South of France, in particular, and many of the Italian areas famous for wine bear traces of Greek culture not only in the varieties of grape, but also for methods of cultivation or traditional pruning even today that the vineyards are subject of renewed care and new technology pulse. The Greek method of cultivating vine is widespread in many traditional crops in southern France and in Spain, Corsica and Sardinia. Useful where the weather, the wind or the dryness of the soil provide difficult conditions (the vines as it is known, to give sweet wine should not be artificially wet cured so that it can take sun, do not dry out and do not catch cold), are handed down intact to this day in the Tuscan island of Giglio and Pantelleria. In different climate conditions, however, was often practiced by the Etruscans also another type of long pruning on live tutor. This method called by the Romans arbustum is indicated by Pliny as arbustum gallicum because it was particularly prevalent in the territories of Oltrepò Po Pavese and Piacenza inhabited by Celtic-Ligurian, mainly belonging to the tribe Gauls Boi, who were using almost always the maple tree as a guardian. Where there are strong influences of Etruscan, modern research has made ​​it possible to detect even very early signs of selection of vines. It is of Greek origin Aglianico grape variety from which it was  and still is produced the most famous wine of the Roman world, the Falerno, which was drink at least 10 years old. In the Dinner of Trimalchio  Petronius tells of a 100 year old Falerno and Ovid talks about a Falerno, coming from his farms, and aged exactly as he was: 33 years. Recent biological studies have revealed that some of the finest Italian wines are related to those of Rhodes. In the Tyrrhenian part of Italy we also find several grapes varieties of Greek origin as Ansonica in theTuscan islands that is resistant in poor and dry soils and is called Inzolia in Sicily and Campania (this name probably derives directly from the Latin term Irziola reported by Pliny) or Sangiovese which since 1300 produces Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino.   Before the 1500s the Tuscan wine was simply called Vermilion if red  and  Vernaccia when white, but already in 1400 some Tuscan wines were judged to be of superior quality and some document of 913 AD speaks of winemaking in Val di Chianti and Chianti wines were gradually becoming more popular than other Tuscan wines, The term Chianti appears only at the end of the fourteenth century. The quality and reputation of the wine produced in this area comes from the winemaking process, invented shortly after the middle of the fourteenth century by two Florentines, which consisted of adding to the wine just a small percentage of raisins and rifermenting to get a pure wine. Other additions were planned as egg white, bitter almonds, salt to clarify, pepper and rose petals to give a nice color. From the countries of the South Caucasus certainly arrives  Marzemino  of the northeastern regions of Italy, which has a bound with the ancient legend of the hero Diomedes. After the fall of the Roman Empire, do to the ruin and anarchy of the territories and the ravages of the barbarian invasions, all agriculture was seriously endangered and even vines, although protected by the Barbarian laws both the Salic and those of Visigoths which provided harsh penalties for people who had uprooted or damaged one. Were the Benedictine and Cistercian monks who protected viticulture, improving it. In Italy, as in France, many famous wines still bear the names of abbeys or monasteries. The Benedictine Rule say: We know well that wine is absolutely not convenient to monks; as well as in our times it is difficult for monks to be convinced of it, even we permit it but without drinking to satiety [...] Wine and clergy have always gotten along ... Of note are also the wine grape in Sicily. The Ansonica, already mentioned, is the oldest grape variety which presence on the island is documented . The  Malvasia  has been brought into the Italic territories from Greece first in the fourth century BC and the grapes of Muscat  also said  Zibibbo  and called by the ancients  Vitis Apianae  because loved by bees, are probably come with the Phoenicians. Very celebrated were Mamertinum and Zancle which are supposed to have given rise to some actual vines. About all other strains of wine grapes unfortunately we do not have documented information before 1500 AD, although we do not find it hard to understand that they are not appeared suddenly. The University of Pisa has studied the DNA of Italian grape varieties and produced a database, most with the intent to catalog and provide a map against adulteration and not yet to study the original strains. It is instead a recent wine, made with a studied mixture of grapes the Marsala, liqueur wine loved by the British who invented it for their own consumption. In a letter, Horatio Nelson writes: Palermo, March 20, 1798 A few days ago I received this Casimiro Schepis, in charge of Mr. John Woodhouse.  He offered me a bottle of Marsala produced by Woodhouse himself and a commercial coupon for the supply of five hundred barrels of that wine to be delivered to our ships in Malta, at the price of one shilling and five pence per gallon. And because Mr. Woodhouse writes to be ready to assume all risks, to pay for the shipping, etc. I do not think it is a bad deal. Moreover, the wine is so good to be worthy of any gentleman's table and will be a real boon for our sailors.  Horatio Nelson  Baron of Bronte   Although already in Roman times, the grapes were subjected to different pressings, producing excellent quality wines and other af low quality with a wide price differentiation, the wine trade was for longtime deregulated and subject to certain terms and disorder price. We end up with the verses of Horace: Can not please long nor live  verses written by water drinkers

Ribolla Anfora Gravner Joško Gravner, Italian-Slovenian winemaker, was the first in Italy to make wine in amphorae and is still perhaps the only one who does all his wine with this ancient method that he went to learn in Georgia, the home of the wine. Malvasia delle Lipari by Hauner Carlo Hauner, from Brescia but of Bohemian origin transplanted in the Aeolian islands, has been the founder of the farm that bears his name .. In addition to the Malvasia the farm also produces reds and whites wines particularly good, a brandy Malvasia and also boasts a production of capers Chianti Vepri The winery, owned by the Cicogni a family with a long tradition in the field of milling wheat in Val di Chiana, is conducted since 2010 by Clio Cicogni.  The wine is a Chianti perfectly adherent to tradition, ruby red color, ideal with simple Tuscan dishes. Mastroberardino winery La villa dei Misteri Mastroberardino Winery of Atripalta is very old and since more than 2 centuries all activities are still conducted by members of the family Mastroberardino. In addition to the careful activity in the production of wines with ancient references that have made these territories famous since ancient Roman and to the support to all small local producers, the winery is engaged in project of restoration of the ancient agricolture of the site with the Pompei Archaeological Superintendence .