Cellis avitis.”
The far-famed Falernian was grown about the bases of hills. Galen observes that were two sorts of Falernian, the dry and the sweetish. The latter was only produced when the wind continued in the south during the vintage. Martial dignifies Falernian with the epithet immortal:—
“Addere quid cessas, puer, immortale Falernum?”
But, although the name of the Falernian be familiar in our mouths as “household words,” nothing is known of its taste, flavour, or colour. It is, however, described as a strong wine, that would keep long, and so rough, that it required to be cellared a great number of years before it was sufficiently mellow.
The wines of the Mons Falernus, however, always preserved a superior character. Tibullus places them under the superintending care of Bacchus. Silius Italicus gives them a preference over the Asiatic and Greek wines; and Virgil, in bestowing smooth, flowing praises on the vinum Rhæticum, says, it must, nevertheless, yield the palm to the Falernian.
Among the lighter wines of the Roman territory, the Sabinum, Nomentanum, and Venafrum, were among the most popular. “The first,” says Henderson, “was a thin table wine, of a reddish colour, attaining its maturity in seven years. The Nomentanum, a delicate claret wine, is described as coming to perfection in five or six years.” Among the Sicilian wines, the Mamertinum, which came from the neighbourhood of Messina, and is said to have been first introduced at public entertainments by Julius Cæsar, was light and astringent.
The Greeks were fonder of wine than the Romans, and were supplied with a greater variety. Among the earliest of the Greek wines, of which we have any distinct account is the Maronean, “probably,” says Henderson, “the production of Ismaurus, near the mouth of the Hebrus, where Ulysses received the supply which he carried with him on his voyage to the land of the Cyclops. The Maronean was a black, sweet wine, and from the manner in which Homer sings its virtues, the quality must have been indeed superior. The Pramnian a red, but not a sweet wine, of equal antiquity. It was a potent and durable liquor, and must have somewhat resembled port. It was, however, in the luscious, sweet wines that the Greeks surpassed their neighbours. These wines were the products of the islands of the Ionian and the Ægean Seas, where the exquisite climate and a suitable soil gave to the fruit a peculiar flavour and excellence. Lesbos, Chios, and Thasos, seems, according to Henderson, to have contended for the superiority; but several of the other islands, such as Corcyra, Cyprus, Crete, Cnidos, and Rhodes, yielded wines which were much esteemed for their sweetness and delicacy. The Thasian and some of the Cretan wines were peculiarly fragrant. Athenæus calls the former οινος ανθοσμιος.”
The Greeks, gourmets as they were, did not confine themselves to the indigenous growths. They were familiar with the produce of the African and Asiatic wines, of which several enjoyed a high reputation. They drank of the white wines of Mareotis and Taenia, in Lower Egypt; of the wine of Antylla, the produce of the vicinity of Alexandria; of the sweet wine of Lydia, in Asia Minor; of the Scybellites, so called from the place of its growth in Galatia, also in Asia Minor. The Greeks, like the Romans, drank all their wines, especially those of the stronger kind, very largely diluted with water, for their common drink. Plutarch has mentioned three different kinds of mixtures. The πεντε, or five, consisted of three parts of water and two of pure wine; and the τρια, or three, of two parts of water and one of wine; the fourth consisted of three parts of water, and one of wine.
Athenæus mentions a mixture called πεντε και δυο, which consisted of five parts of pure wine and two of water.
The recent Greek wines, which were meant for more immediate use, were kept in goat-skins. But, even in Homer’s time the Greeks were well acquainted with the art of preserving their best and stronger wines in wooden casks, or hogsheads (which he calls πιθοι), until they had attained a proper maturity.