|
|
|
|
The Vintnery
Associated to Place:
The Loving Cup Caupona & Vintnery, Ltd. >
articles
-- by
![]() Wine Bibber When, O happy Maecenas, shall I, overjoyed at Caesar’s being victorious, drink with you under the stately dome (for so it pleases Jove) the Caecuban reserved for festal entertainments, while the lyre plays a tune, accompanied with flutes, that in the Doric, these in the Phrygian measure? HORACE, Book of the Epodes
Mulsum. Mulsum was wine sweetened with honey. Often freely dispensed to the plebs at public events to solicit their political support, the demand for it became so great that it was more profitable to sell wine at home than to export it and, by the first century AD, wine had to be imported from Iberia and Gaul. Varro relates the story of an impoverished host serving mulsum to his guests, even though he economized by not drinking it, himself. But mulsum was not always inexpensive or inferior. Martial writes of the best quality being made of Falernian mixed with Attic honey, a drink suitable to be poured by Ganymede, himself, cupbearer to Zeus (XIII.108). The dregs of the wine press should be given to the livestock, suggests Columella, "for they contain the strength both of food and of wine and make the cattle sleek and of good cheer and plump." When soaked in water and allowed to ferment, the grape-skins and stalks left in the vat also produced lora, a thin, bitter brew allocated to slaves. Soldiers and the urban poor usually drank little better. Falernian. The best-loved and the finest of all vintages! But it was Falernian that elicits the most praise. Made from the Aminean grape, "a producer of exceedingly good wine," according to Columella, it was brought to Italy by Greek colonists who first settled at Cumae near the Bay of Naples. Pliny says that three types were recognized: Caucinian, which was grown on the higher slopes; and then, midway down, Faustian (grown on the estate of Faustus, the son of the dictator Sulla, and regarded as the best and most carefully produced); and, on the lower slopes, Falernian. Caecubum. As Strabo wrote, The Caecuban Plain borders on the Gulf of Caietas [in Latium]; and next to the plain comes Fundi, situated on the Appian Way. All these places produce exceedingly good wine; indeed, the Caecuban and the Fundanian and the Setinian belong to the class of wines that are widely famed, as is the case with the Falernian and the Alban and the Statanian. Alban Wine The joy of the Alban Hills! As Dionysius of Helicarnassus wrote, "Lying below the city [of Rome] are plains marvelous to behold and rich in producing wines and fruits of all sorts in no degree inferior to the rest of Italy, and particularly what they call the Alban wine, which is sweet and excellent and, with the exception of the Falernian, certainly superior to all others." (Roman Antiquities Book 1).
![]() ![]() ![]()
SOURCES: Encyclopaedia Romana
|
Divinely Decadent Demi Domus
~ Table of Contents ~
Test Article II
Test Article III Insulae Etruscan Cities and Their Environment: Caere Etruscan Cities and their Environment: Pyrgi The Tribe of the Langobarden Information about Crete, Knossos, Rethymno and Chania A Woman Of Sparta Martialis, the poet of Epigrams Menerva on an Etruscan Mirror in the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, Germany Forum Romanum: Rostra, Curia, Decennalia Base and Lapis Niger The Southern part of the Campus Martius and the Circus Flaminius Area Forum Romanum: The Arch of Titus Forum Romanum: The Arch of Septimius Severus Forum Romanum: the Temple of Vesta and the Vestal Virgins An Introduction to the Classic Period Maya I ~*Roots*~ Ptah of MenNefer; A Creation Myth Khnum and the Potter´s Wheel The Architecture of Cicero's Villa in Tusculum The Maecenas Worship on the Esquiline Pompey Marcus Antonius Virgil Horace Propertius Villa Rustica - The Villa Buildings The Villa Rooms Heraklia's Oikos Ongoing Restoration of Shunet el-Zebib Quintus Ennius : a Greco-Roman «Republican» Poet on the Aventine A Tour of the Aventine Hill Shops and Craftsmen of the Aventine |