THE ROMANS - PART 2

Also at that time, practices to improve the must existed. For example, people used marble dust in order to eliminate sourness in wine, and clay -or albumen or goat milk- to clarify it. Instead, to improve wine durability they add resins, pitch and myrrh. Often, at the moment of serving it at the table, wine was subjet to further filtrations with a kind of metal strainer.

When the amphora arrived at the table, wine was poured into a vase -the "cratere"- and, according to its purpose and quality, it was mixed with water. Then, with the help of a "simpulum", a kind of ladle, it was decanted into cups. Usually people drank wine from the "pàtera", a wide and short sacrificial vase, or from the Etruscan "khantàros", an elegant bucchero cup -it could also be of a different material- which was provided with two handles, or again from the "cyatus", especially used for toasts.

Oenological industry was performed also independently from the rest of farm activities. This fact is testified by many information we have about auction sales of hanging grapes. In the territory of "Arretium" and "Cortona" tanks for grape-squeezing were found. They were made in masonry, had a remarkable capacity, and so were probably destined to industrial use.

Between the end of the Roman Republic and the begininning of the Empire, in Meditrerranean countries people produced different kinds of wine, as Stradone wrote in his "Geographica". From Italy wine was so introduced into the provinces the Romans were gradually conquering and annexing to the Empire. At that time, people used to drink Falerno and Massico from Campania, Cecubo from Latium, Mamertino from Sicily, Rethico from Veneto, but also wine from Alba (Piedmont), Taranto (Apulia), Ancona (Marche) and Sezze (Latium). Also in Gaul (actual Southern France), especially in that area we today know as Côte du Rhône, people produced good wines, so as in Spain (in Valencia and Tarragona). Starting from the 2nd century AD, vineyards were implanted along Côte d'Or (France). From their grapes, the famous and highly appreciated Burgundy wines were destined to be born.

Wine was used in many recipes of the Roman cuisine. There were also particular wines, provided with different perfumes and flavours, that people obtained through the infusion with other plants and by adding special substances. Since they were considered to have special powers, some of these wines could be used for specific purposes, such as abortion, fertility, male impotence etc. Also "vinum murratum" existed, which was given to men sentenced to death, in order to cloud their consciousness before execution.

Anyway, wine was always mixed with water, since it had the consistency of a syrup. For this purpose, the character of "Magister Simposii" (or "Arbiter Bibendi") was created. They usually decided the quantity of water to be added to wine before decanting it. As it also happened among the Greeks, drinking pure wine (called "merum") was considered a barbarian act. As the legend goes, the emperor Tiberius was probably affected by this "little vice", and his legionaries changed his name from "Tiberius Claudius Nero" into "Biberius Caldius Merum", that is "drinker of merum wine". Only at the end of the imperial age, the consistency of wine changed and people started drinking it pure.

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