Click to be added or removed. (Over 100 members).Wine news ping.
Posted on 12/26/2005 11:56:44 PM PST by LibWhacker
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The Romans were the first to use wine as a finely calibrated social yardstick - and thus inaugurated centuries of wine snobbery . . . Pliny the Younger, writing in the late first century A.D., described a dinner at which the host and his friends were served fine wine, second-rate wine was served to other guests, and third-rate wine was served to former slaves.
[ . . . ]
Just how seriously the Romans took the business of wine classification can be seen from the story of Marcus Antonius, a Roman politician who in 87 B.C. found himself on the wrong side of a power struggle . . .
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Hi, quantim!... Check this one out and see if it qualifies for your ping list, thx.
Opimian wine [121BC vintage, from the name of the consul of that year] was perfectly drinkable in post-Caligulaic, Nero's times, and was served to Trimalchio in his feast [see Petronius' "Satyricon"]. Tom Standage ought to read more and imbibe less.
I think he's also wrong claiming that Romans were the first to use wine as some kind of social yardstick; the Greeks did it, too. It's hard to see how it could be any other way. The best of any commodity that's in short supply and high demand (never mind wine) will go to the wealthiest people.
Click to be added or removed. (Over 100 members).Wine news ping.
Wine history is an interesting subject. Much of the historical record dates back some 7-8000 years ago in Egypt and Mesopotamia (present day Iran/Iraq border areas ironically).
With today's technology it is particularly fascinating on how scientists and archeologists can use ancient pollen grains and embedded DNA in seeds and so forth to track vine evolution and how grapevines were cross-pollinated and traded around the globe to the present day.
Ancient Beer, Wine Jars Found in Egypt
AP/SF Chronicle | 5/18/05 | AP
Posted on 05/18/2005 7:01:35 PM PDT by TFFKAMM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1406063/posts
Ears of plenty (the story of wheat / The story of man's staple food)
The Economist | Dec 20th 2005
Posted on 12/26/2005 8:42:55 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1547436/posts
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