# Was wine in antiquity awful? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 2, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453 "2015-06-02T16:53:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/21 "2015-06-03T04:01:47Z")
Thanks to all for the information. There should be enough to track it down in one version or another. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/22 "2015-06-03T11:51:17Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > It probably wouldn’t not be considered bad, but it also likely would be nothing like modern wine. Standards and tastes change, to the point that even good wine from a couple centuries ago is very different. Champagne, for instance, used to be ludicrously sweet. . A couple of years ago I visited Larz Anderson House in Washington, D.C. One of the features in one of the rooms was a dispenser for wine. Instead of containing a large glass container for the wine, or a glazed ceramic one, the space for the wine was made of metal. When I asked about this, I was told that, yes, indeed, the interaction between the wine and the metal would affect the flavor – _but they liked it that way._ I can’t imagine anyone in DC drinking metal-flavored Chardonnay these days. (The house was built only a century ago) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/23 "2015-06-03T11:53:49Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The Greeks considered intoxication to be a social faux pas, and dilution reduced the alcohol content. Incidentally, here in France watering wine is a capital crime. Respect the rotten grapes ! (no, not really) ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/24 "2015-06-03T12:59:15Z")
I use a lot of wine in my kitchen - some of it even goes in the food. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/25 "2015-06-05T01:17:04Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Incidentally, here in France watering wine is a capital crime. Respect the rotten grapes ! > > (no, not really) Well, 51 years ago, I saw Frenchmen routinely water their lunch wine and parents watered their children’s wines in restaruant. I have read that the Romans heated their turned wines in lead vats to sweeten them. All the chemistry say that “lead acetate is reputed to be sweet”. And poisonous. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/26 "2015-06-05T11:44:15Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Well, 51 years ago, I saw Frenchmen routinely water their lunch wine and parents watered their children’s wines in restaruant. > > I have read that the Romans heated their turned wines in lead vats to sweeten them. All the chemistry say that “lead acetate is reputed to be sweet”. And poisonous. I think the lead acetate theory is oversold. I haven’t seen any Roman text that explicitly calls for the wine to be boiled down in _lead_ pots (which is needed for the making of lead acetate, which used to be called “sugar of lead” because it is, indeed, sweet) – that is just assumed. It’s not unlikely for lead to be used in soldering pots and joints in plumbing (“Plumbing” comes from “plumbum” = “lead”, because it was used so frequently in making and repairing conduits). But boiled-down wine can be used as a sweetener even in the absence of lead salts – the grapes themselves contain sugars – lots of them. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Milton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6bbea6/32.png) [@Mr.Milton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Milton)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/27 "2015-06-05T15:05:47Z")
With regard to retsina: The story I was told was that it is a wine that originally was made in homes or otherwise very locally for everyday use. Also, for the sake of low cost produceability, pine barrels would be used vice white oak (I don’t believe white oak grows in or near Greece in any case). And since pine is very porous, it had to be sealed with --what else?-- pine resin. Wine made today to have the taste of “real” retsina is made with more than a hint of pine pitch flavor. What is “pine pitch flavor”? Pine pitch is also used to make turpentine, and to me this is what retsina tastes strongly of. In other words, pretty damn bad. I like my alcohol and will drink a lot of things, but this to me is virtually undrinkable. I only drank it as a courtesy to the host. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/28 "2015-06-05T18:20:45Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Many red wines were made (and exported) in bulk quantities as inexpensive table wine, meant to drank while they were bold and fresh and very rough - even though that wouldn’t fly in much of the world today. How is that different than today? Most wine drunk today is inexpensive stuff for everyday use, even if it isn’t legally classified as “table wine” by EU standards it’s still cheap unfancy unaged non-vintage wine. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/29 "2015-06-05T18:32:07Z")
Sure, their best might have been like cat piss, but if that was the best they had, wouldn’t they have praised it anyway? They wouldn’t even know it was cat piss. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/30 "2015-06-09T07:23:43Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Sure, their best might have been like cat piss, but if that was the best they had, wouldn’t they have praised it anyway? They wouldn’t even know it was cat piss. [Cheesing](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheesing)? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/31 "2015-06-09T07:43:07Z")
A hundred years from now, wouldn’t people think our winemaking standards were low? ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/33 "2015-06-10T19:20:32Z")
Every year or two I spend a week or so in Greece in a center run by a monastery. They make their own wine . It’s terrible (but I drink it) - . The retsina doubly so. My guess is that what was made in antiquity was worse. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/34 "2015-06-11T06:59:44Z")
The oldest named wine still in production is _Commandaria_, from Cyprus and there is reason to believe that it’s representative of a subset of Greek wines dating back to ‘ancient’ times. It’s made from partially dried grapes and is a bit like a sweet sherry. Not the sort of thing you might drink a huge amount of (although maybe if diluted), but it’s not awful at all. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/35 "2015-06-11T07:26:34Z")
I think it is important to draw the distinction between flawed wine and poor quality wine. There hasn’t been _that_ huge a leap in winemaking technology over the years - the manner we make wine is pretty similar to how it has been done for centuries. But we have gained an understanding about what happens to a sufficient extent that there is no excuse to ever create a flawed wine. There is much more flexibility afforded a modern winemaker in the sense that he can use the knowledge we have about the process to fine tune a wine, and nowadays it is possible to “design” a wine from the outset. Given a grape harvest a winemaker can decide upon the production steps in detail, and can be pretty sure of creating a wine that is pretty much as he intended it. In the past it was more hit and miss. On both levels. A lack of understanding about the microbiology of wine meant that the yeasts were what was wild, and things like bacterial contamination a reality that could wreck a wine. But this doesn’t mean that a wine could not be really good. Just that the precise reasons that it became so were not understood. Thus a significant conservatism in how it was made - trying to repeat what worked well last time - even it there was no actual science to back things up. Knowledge of what grapes in what state of ripeness worked best with what specific process steps would be created over time. Sometimes however it would all go wrong and be an undrinkable mess, and other times one could expect that things would go rather well. A very detailed understanding of wine making is a very modern thing. DNA sequencing of yeasts wasn’t available all that long ago, but still very fine wine was made. Pasteur wasn’t all that long ago either, and before him the French still made good wine (and total rubbish), even if they really didn’t have much clue what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453/36 "2015-06-11T13:01:44Z")
We also have better cleaning supplies more immediately available (and the microbiology understanding which to use); plus hot and cold running water, and electrical or gas heat to boil water. I’m imagining hygiene was more often skipped when every bucket of water had to be hauled by hand, and firewood chopped by hand for boiling things. Just like today, the craftsmen that cared to do a good job probably figured out how, the others probably did the minimum - with minimal results. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-wine-in-antiquity-awful/721453.md?page=1)