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Posted on 06/17/2025 9:33:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A recent investigation by University College Dublin archaeologist Conor Trainor posits that ceramic beehives found at the site of Knossos may be evidence that merchants on the island of Crete sold counterfeit products to their Roman clientele, The Conversation reports. Crete specialized in the production of a particular raisin wine sometimes known as passum. Drying out grapes before fermentation and making wine from raisins produces a sweeter vintage that was popular across the ancient Mediterranean world, especially with the Romans. However, this process requires time and patience, two things that Roman consumers may not have had. Trainor believes that there may have been a duplicitous reason behind the presence of beehives found at a wine-producing site in Knossos. To keep up with demand, winemakers may have been mixing honey with their wine to artificially sweeten it, a much swifter and less expensive option than having to wait months for grapes to dry out. Given the large volume of empty Cretan wine amphoras found in Rome, however, this did not seem to spoil the city's thirst for the island specialty.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
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[The Conversation]Dan Henson/Shutterstock
I don’t drink. But I wouldn’t mind trying it once. Can that stuff be bought?
I wouldn’t mind trying it. I will look it up and see if I can buy a cooler sized bottle.
Were they selling something that was difficult or time consuming to make and thus had a high price tag?
Then of course, at least some of them were.
Fashions and taste come and go, people stay the same.
"Drying out grapes before fermentation and making wine from raisins produces a sweeter vintage that was popular across the ancient Mediterranean world, especially with the Romans. However, this process requires time and patience, two things that RomanRegards,consumerswinemakers may not have had."
If you click on the word mead in my previous post it is a link to a search.
It packs a kick so serve in small glasses.
Those Cretans!
There’s no stoppin’ the Cretans from hoppin’.
“The Cretans are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies” ( Titus 1:12 ).
Probably. They had a bad reputation.
Not a fan of sweet wines to drink, maybe to use in a pasta sauce.
Anyone who has visited Knossos knows it is a fantastical creation of a self promoting archeologist. Indeed it is a wonderful visit. But seems quite absurd.
That said. A fantastic place to visit considering the achievements in sewage and I irrigation infrastructure. And if you go Xania is a wonderful vacation spot. L
As long as it tasted good and had the expected alcohol content, no harm done, I suppose. For all we know the honey might have been a known ingredient prized by consumers that gave the Cretan passum a distinctive taste that customers desired.
Might be good in a number of dishes that could benefit from added swetness
I've seen an Italian dessert wine with the word "Passum" on the bottle; didn't know about the use of raisins. A lot of the sweet dessert wines are sold in smaller (375ml) bottles (the one I saw was tall and skinny, like a bottle you might find balsamic vinegar or similar sold in).
You can also buy Amarone wines, made from dried grapes.
True Amarone style wines are expensive, an issue that has ever been [and the point of the article].
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