Italy owes wine legacy to Celts, history buffs say

Reuters via Wash. Post ^ | April 21, 2006 | Svetlana Kovalyova

[Pharmboy]

Boy...this could NOT have been easy for the Italians to admit.

[Pharmboy]

Ping! Please pass the Guinness Pinot Noir...

[muawiyah]

Remember, the Italians claim descent from refugees from the Trojan War.

They were on the losing side.

Obviously, they, themselves, started out as a wandering band of Celts, Troy, or Illium (or in other Celtic languages Allium) being a Celtic site.

So, early Celts in Italy planted grapes.

No Italian who knows his classical history would have a problem with that.

[martin_fierro]

Yeah, and Marco Polo brought spaghetti from China.

Couldn't those darn Italians invent anything?

< |:)~

[Pyro7480]

Couldn't those darn Italians invent anything?

LOL! Well, they were good at art - architectural, painting, sculpture, and music.

[roadrunner96]

Hey I believe it!

A person from Ireland told me just a few weeks ago, get that book "How the Irish (or Celts) saved western civilisation" by Cahill, I am kinding of paraphrasing the title, but surely someone here knows of the book I speak of. It is a treatise on how the books printed, etc. by Irish Monks, withstood the Viking invaders; stuff like that.

Celts are from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany in France and I believe it is said even Bohemia in the Czech Republic-Slovakia area.

[martin_fierro]

Well, they were good at art - architectural, painting, sculpture, and music.

Naaah. They stole all that art from...

...Bob Ross-i.

[Pharmboy]

One Italian guy did pretty well...

[blam]

"Yeah, and Marco Polo brought spaghetti from China. "

Yup And, tomatoes from the new world for spaghetti sauce.

[GSlob]

Greeks had known viticulture prior to Homeric times, and Greek colonies in [southern] Italy pre-date 500 BC. Etruscans and Romans knew how to make wine prior to the same time, and so did the Phoenicians. So what need was there to learn it from the Celts?

[hispanarepublicana]

Pesto Sauce is a great start.

[DJ Taylor]

Celts? Aren't those the guys who's idea of battle was to strip down naked, paint themselves blue, and then proceed to kill everyone to their front? I guess that was after they had a good sampling of the grape.

[WalterSkinner]

..they even lived in Galatia (Asia Minor \Turkey)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Pharmboy for posting this lush topic.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[T Minus Four]

LOL! "It's your world"

[Pharmboy]

Yes--you make good points, come to think of it. Perhaps the knowledge gained from the Greeks, et al did not travel that far north...but I doubt that. Or, perhaps there was some new technique that the Celts added...

[Oztrich Boy]

Celts - the original culture of Europe.

[Fractal Trader]

wine ping

[Pharmboy]

I bought that book a few Christmasses ago for dear friends who are Americans of Irish ancestry. They loved it...

[blam]

How The Irish Saved Civilization

"How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (Hinges of History, Vol 1) Thomas Cahill"