There is a renewed interest in the winemaking procedures of the ancient Romans. Historians in Italy have been studying Roman texts dating back at least 2,000 years to discover how the ancient Romans made their wine. They grew their vines without the use of modern pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers (aside from natural ones, of course). Basically, Roman wine was organic.

These historians are using ancient tools like the ‘stork’, which was basically a wooden cross with a lead weight on a piece of string, which they used to find out if holes dug for planting vines were at the optimal depth. They used broom wood and cane strips instead of twine or twine to tie their vines to posts.

Roman wine was stored in terracotta pots or amphorae, rather than in barrels as is done today. These terracotta pots were buried in the ground, up to their necks, and lined with beeswax to ensure they were waterproof. They were left open to favor fermentation. Later they were sealed with resin or clay.

Modern historians use unusual grape varieties, such as Nerello Mascalese, Visparola, Racinedda, and Muscatedda, producing seven red wines and one white. His vineyard is located in Sicily, near Catania. The Roman poet Virgil and Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella are the sources they rely on for their viticulture methods. Columella was a Roman soldier before dedicating himself to the production of wine. He was the main Roman author of texts on agriculture. Before writing his twelve-volume tome on agriculture, he was a tribune in Syria in the first century AD.

It appears that many of the old Roman farming methods were still in use in Italy until the end of World War II in 1945. The tools used up to that date were also similar to those used in the Roman Empire. Now of course chemicals are used in wine making and wine production has been mechanized.

Roman wine could be bitter, so it tended to taste like honey. The cheaper wine, without honey, was for the peasants, while the milder wine (with honey) was for the aristocrats. Of course, in Britain, mead was the alcoholic beverage that was sweetened with honey.

From archaeological evidence, we know that honey mead was drunk on the Asian mainland between 6,500 and 7,000 BC. C. The ancient Greeks thought that mead was the drink of the gods. Why not try a few and see if you agree?