How do modern wines stack up to those of the past?

[DickP]

When Louis XIV cracked open a Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1620 or whatever, do we have any idea how that bottle would compare, quality wise, to currently available wines?

Having inadvertently turned out a few batches of vinegar myself, I'm constantly reminded of the importance of sanitation in home brewing - but did the vintners of yore understand this as well? If so, did this in any way contribute to the germ theory of disease, or the idea that washing your hands before surgery was important?

[Ethilrist]

Friends of mine in the SCA who have attempted to create medieval wine using recipes from the period have been generally unpleased with the results. Most of what we do to make wine now is being done to make it more pleasant to drink. What they made back then may have been made the way that it was in order to make it not turn nasty, as in poison, and instead made it nasty, as in nigh-undrinkably bad tasting, necessitating the addition of fruit to kill the taste.

And, they ended up with a lot of vinegar, which would then last quite well, thank you, and was handy for cooking.

[RealityChuck]

Also, in 1620, there were no corks. Bottles were stoppered with rags, so went bad pretty quickly.

Vintners were still experimenting. They could probably make a decent wine, but it had to be drunk in a few days.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Also, in 1620, there were no corks. Bottles were stoppered with rags, so went bad pretty quickly.

Vintners were still experimenting. They could probably make a decent wine, but it had to be drunk in a few days.

Had they forgotten how to make Amphora? In Roman times wines were shipped all over the ancient world in sealed Amphora and there were vintages written about by Cicero as being exceptionally good. I understand that some of the winemaking techniques were probably lost but losing the tech of how to seal a bottle (with clay or wax or even molten lead to make a stopper) doesn't seem feasible.

[cjepson]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Had they forgotten how to make Amphora? In Roman times wines were shipped all over the ancient world in sealed Amphora and there were vintages written about by Cicero as being exceptionally good. I understand that some of the winemaking techniques were probably lost but losing the tech of how to seal a bottle (with clay or wax or even molten lead to make a stopper) doesn't seem feasible.

The thing about corks is that they allow a small amount of air through via osmosis, so the wine can mature. I imagine they were capable of producing an airtight seal which would allow wine to be stored, but when they unsealed it, it would be no better and perhaps worse than when it was sealed, and you would still have to finish it quickly.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by cjepson

I imagine they were capable of producing an airtight seal which would allow wine to be stored, but when they unsealed it, it would be no better and perhaps worse than when it was sealed, and you would still have to finish it quickly.

Nope, the Romans knew about maturing wines and had ways to do it. See here:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/...e/vintage.html

"Falnerian was not drinkable, says Galen, until at least ten years old and then good from fifteen to twenty years" (Athenaeus, I.26c).

1620 Wine may have been poor stuff, but the Roman's knew how to make decent Wine from what we can tell.

[Rampant Coypu]

If you had a free time portal and could take back cheap 4l jugs of Carlo Rossi to the late Republic or Hellenistic Alexandria your wine would be praised as the one of the best and most consistent wines ever made. You could charge a pretty high price and also make a huge profit off a recycling deposit. That glass jug will have huge resale value as it can be melted down for a profit. You would never get the jugs back. Romans could sell them for reuse or recycling even if you charged them a weight in silver that would make you ten dollars as a deposit.

They'd go nuts over Carlo Rossi. Modern wines are far superior.

[njtt]

Originally Posted by Rampant Coypu

They'd go nuts over Carlo Rossi. Modern wines are far superior.

As you state this so confidently, I can only suppose that you actually do have access to a time-portal.

[Colibri]

Moved to Cafe Society from GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[Rampant Coypu]

Originally Posted by njtt

As you state this so confidently, I can only suppose that you actually do have access to a time-portal.

Why yes. my primary income is from trading wine for silver and gold through the time portal. But along with that I always ask for a little household gods creche. When I get enough gold I'm gonna buy all the Greek black figure pottery they can send me. I sent them a few packages of RIT artificial purple dye last month. They now want yellow and red dye. They don't want wine anymore, in spite of the value of the glass,

Getting back on topic, while there were sealed amphorae and other good techniques for preserving wine, other wines did not get this treatment.

Most wine was probably worse that Carlo Rossi in the ancient world.

[Zebra]

This 2004 documentaryMondo Vino about modern wine making is fascinating and very informative. Wine making has changed greatly over the last decade and not everyone thinks for the better. Then again, not everyone thinks for the worse.

[astro]

IIRC what the Roman's considered to be a "wine" beverage and what we think of as wine are quite different in that the wine of ancient times was a heavily watered admixture of fermented wine and water, not the 10% alcohol "wine" people drink today. Drinking wine sans water was considered somewhat vulgar.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/...wine/wine.html

Wine almost always was mixed with water for drinking; undiluted wine (merum) was considered the habit of provincials and barbarians. The Romans usually mixed one part wine to two parts water (sometimes hot or even salted with sea water to cut some of the sweetness). The Greeks tended to dilute their wine with three or four parts water, which they always mixed by adding the wine. The intention of the symposium was to enjoy the aesthetic pleasure of the wine, to be intoxicated just enough to have the mind released from inhibition and conversation stimulated. At its Roman counterpart, the convivium, there was a tendency to get drunk more blatantly.

[lisiate]

Just to make things more complicated nearly all European vinyards were devasted by phylloxera in the nineteeth century.Entire vinyards had to be torn up and replanted with grafted vines. So the wine produced since then is fundamentally different from the old wines.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by Rampant Coypu

Most wine was probably worse that Carlo Rossi in the ancient world.

I'll agree with you on that, but its more interesting to me to compare the best wine the Roman's could produce to the best wine we can produce. How does the Falernian vintage that Cicero raves about that was produced for Senators and Emperors and was considered the best Roman vintage for hundreds of years stack up to todays best wines?

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Originally Posted by lisiate

Just to make things more complicated nearly all European vinyards were devasted by phylloxera in the nineteeth century.Entire vinyards had to be torn up and replanted with grafted vines. So the wine produced since then is fundamentally different from the old wines.

I think the jury is still out on how different those wines really tasted (and of course we'll never really know). Those are still noble vitis vinifera grapes, just grafted onto American vine rootstock to resist the phylloxera.

[Dangerosa]

If you drink the wines popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they tend to be sweeter. Madeira for instance, is still made, but few people buy it to drink, most of it is sold to cook with. Wine of that era was often mixed with sugar (ratafia) to make it more palatable. Carets, ports and sherries were popular as well.

[cjepson]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Nope, the Romans knew about maturing wines and had ways to do it. See here:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/...e/vintage.html

"Falnerian was not drinkable, says Galen, until at least ten years old and then good from fifteen to twenty years" (Athenaeus, I.26c).

1620 Wine may have been poor stuff, but the Roman's knew how to make decent Wine from what we can tell.

[carson]I did not know that![/carson] In my post, the "they" I was referring to was (implicitly, anyway) medieval winemakers, so I guess I was right as far as that went, at least.

[Gray Ghost]

Originally Posted by FoieGrasIsEvil

I think the jury is still out on how different those wines really tasted (and of course we'll never really know). Those are still noble vitis vinifera grapes, just grafted onto American vine rootstock to resist the phylloxera.

FWIW, I don't know if there are any differences in taste just from vinifera rootstock vs. American rootstock. The Quinta do Noval Nacional supposedly is on ungrafted rootstock, as are parts of some of the more notable MittelMosel vineyards, like Wehlener and Zeltinger Sonnenuhr. The phylloxera louse doesn't propagate well in heavy slate soils or in whatever soils constitute the unaffected areas of the Nacional. Anyway, I don't believe the entire Sonnenuhr vineyard is ungrafted---though maybe it is---and I haven't noticed a difference in taste in the Sonnenuhr's I've tasted. Per this article, most wines in Chile are grown on ungrafted vines. Ballsy gamble IMHO, but they're not my vineyards. Chilean Cabs and Merlots don't taste that different to me than California ones grown on American rootstock.

[Smeghead]

I was just reading the "black people are stupid because of genetics" thread, so I misread the title as "How do modern whites stack up to those of the past?"

Carry on.

[ralph124c]

A related question-was mead more popular than wine, in Medieval Times?
Mead was easier to make (honey), and could be made in places where wine grapes could not be grown-like Scandinavia and Russia.
Was mead the in drink in the 8th-12th centuries?
I have made mead myself-using published recipes, mine tasted like dry white wine, not sweet at all.

[silenus]

Meads sweetness is entirely dependent on how much honey you use. Based on my readings, everybody before modern times prefered wines and meads on the sickeningly sweet side.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Also, in 1620, there were no corks. Bottles were stoppered with rags, so went bad pretty quickly.

But generally wine would be aged in barrels, not in expensive glass bottles.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

A related question-was mead more popular than wine, in Medieval Times?

Not more popular, given that there definitely existed a thriving trade in wine from the Med/France northwards. I'm not aware of a reciprocal mead trade Southwards.

Mead was easier to make (honey), and could be made in places where wine grapes could not be grown-like Scandinavia and Russia.
Was mead the in drink in the 8th-12th centuries?

It's not really apt to compare mead with wine in those locales - the question to ask is if it was more popular than ale. Which varies from place to place, I think, but certainly mead was the in-drink in Scandiwegia. Not just for its alcoholic content, but also its religious/cultural significance.

[Mdcastle]

Say you walk into a Roman bar for wine. Do you get a selection or reds, whites, varieties "this new batch of Gaul stuff is pretty good", or just order "wine" made with whatever grapes were around.