Hey Edward, we’re actually looking into shipping to KY right this moment. We’ll send you a PM as soon as we find out details as there may be some extra charge incurred via a third-party shipper, but we’d be damned if we didn’t at least try to get some Ancient Wines to you out there!
Stay tuned.
OK. I am intrigued by off-the-radar wines, and deeply interested in ancient history (I just received the 2-volume set of The Temple of Man by Schwaller de Lubicz, and working through it will be my winter project). I imagine we’d have a lot to discuss. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
I am totally overloaded on wine and just jumped on WB to window shop. I swore I wouldn’t buy anything. Then I saw this, and I knew I was in trouble. I’ve studied Ancient Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit and am an absolute sucker for ancient winemaking methods and autochthonous varietals. Went for the club membership and may need a party pack or four…
Oh absolutely! That looks like an amazing set, you certainly have your work cut out for you this winter!
One of our past clubs releases, titled “Minerals & Monuments: The Terroirs of Ancient Egypt” featured French wines grown on 3 soil types (limestone, clay, and granite) and then paired it with analysis of 3 ancient Egyptian monuments, such as the Pyramids of Khafre, and the obelisks at Luxor temple.
Dana, during his time in Egypt, actually had the experience of visiting the quarries in Aswan where they initially sourced the red, black, and gray granite for the Luxor complex! Who knew there was a geological connection with the pink granite of the Crus of Beaujolais/Northern Rhone and Luxor?!
Also, PM sent regarding shipping.
Sorry-not-sorry Eric! ![[highfive.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/db21b9263a9105e51f6f8b11e61dd4de095611f9.gif "highfive"){kind=small}
So glad we can share the wines with you and help feed the history/classics addiction! I’m actually pretty sure Jeff Pearson is posting on Wine Berserkers while teaching a Latin class right now…!
Thanks, Jeff - I love this “Judgment of Paris” story!
More questions -
You touched on Athens and Rome above, what about Constantinople? After the fall of the Western Empire, were the Emperors and Courts in the East still drinking mostly wines from what are now Greece and Italy? What about Georgia, Anatolia, the Levant, etc.?
What about the Demes in Constantinople? Did the Blues have allegiance to one particular wine, eschewing another as a favorite of the Greens, and vice-versa?
A lot of your material mentions myths alongside history. What is your favorite link between an AWG wine and a story from ancient myth rather than ancient history?
Do you have any favorite wine stories or discoveries that have emerged from the various excavations/studies at Pompeii?
Do you have any favorite history podcasts covering these periods? I’m a fan of Mike Duncan’s “The History of Rome,” Robin Pierson’s “The History of Byzantium,” and Patrick Wyman’s “Tides of History.”
Let’s say my village was under Roman occupation and I was a very naughty boy. If I wanted to paint “Romans Go Home!” on the walls around the town forum, in correct Latin, what would I write?
It’s been a while since I practiced my ABCs, so I ordered one of each pack. A-B-C-D.
They should be perfect for my wine group.
edit: Holy cow this font is huge
Another question I just thought of -
Are there any Roman Emperors or other famous Romans (Cicero and the like) who are known to have owned vineyard estates? Is there any evidence that any of their wines were particularly well thought of? I’d like to think that, say, Marcus Aurelius, acquired a few hectares of prime vineyard land had an enlightened approach in the cellar.
Hi Edward! This is Dana!
Yes totally! de Lubicz certainly had some interesting ideas- I first came across his work on “Sacred Geometry” when a colleague in Egypt asked me to help do an acoustical survey of tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Similar to de Lubicz, he theorized that the space and organization of Egyptian monuments was highly symbolic and intentional, except instead of external spaces like the Temple of Luxor, he was focused on underground tombs, which he thought were built to resonate at a specific frequency as part of the music attending the burial ceremony. Moving chamber to chamber, he thought it might be possible to reconstruct each tomb’s “song” and understand what kinds of rituals and music may have accompanied the burials. It was a pretty brilliant idea (and a very difficult one to prove!) and we had alot of fun trying to hit the right “notes” with a tuning device, much to the confusion of the occasional tourist 
Anyway, enjoy the book (and hopefully the wines!) Much to discuss indeed!!
Dana
Wow. Very cool concept there!
Here’s another geological connection for you: Kimmeridgian limestone deposits in Wiltshire (Stonehenge) and Chablis/Burgundy. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Oh man, absolutely! We’ve actually talked about doing a club pack with some of the excellent wines from southern England, however pricing is pretty high on some of them, and availability here in California is limited. It’s absolutely on our list of topics we’d love to explore. The Celtic Druids and Druidic culture also has crazy cool connections to wine and alcohol in general, with this unique drink in France’s Brittany region, chouchen being something that producers are even bringing back.
Was their a glyph that said “Play Free Bird!”
The Aswan Dam was mentioned earlier. In 1967, National Geographic did an article on the relocation of Abu Simbel. They hired a bunch of limestone cutters (some from southern Indiana where my dad grew up) to cut things into manageable sections. Apparently, everything was a success except the new position caused a once-a-year beam of light to be off by 1 day. Great article if you can find it.
I think I know those guys!
I attempted to post a reply on this thread a few minutes back, that seems to have evaporated in cyberspace, so I’ll try again with an abbreviated version.
Back in about 2006 or 2007, at our annual soil classifiers meeting in Annapolis, we were addressed by a man who was both a soil scientist and an archaeologist. He had been called in on digs in the Mediterranean and Middle East, to provide contextual help. One of those projects was the excavation of the vacation villa of one of the Roman emperors. He said that soil analysis of the site showed a surprising anomaly, namely, considerable Lead contamination, which puzzled them. I knew at once what the source of the Lead was.
The Romans (the wealthier ones, anyway) liked their wines sweet and concentrated. They would boil them down to concentrate the flavors, then add honey. At their parties they would drink huge quantities of the stuff, to the point of being sick; they would go outside and vomit up the wine, then return inside to start all over. In fact some villas had specialized areas called vomitoria (singular, vomitorium) for just that activity, which should indicate to you how common it was.
Unfortunately they used Lead vessels for that boiling, and the acid in the wine dissolved a good bit of the Lead, eventually resulting in Lead poisoning among active partiers. Some commentators have speculated that this might have accounted for the cruel and depraved behavior of Roman emperors, as Lead affects the brain and behavior in frightening ways. And imagine how much Lead-laced wine would have been deposited on the grounds at the Emperor’s party spot.
I related this to the speaker. He didn’t believe me (even though those facts are well-attested by contemporary accounts), but I’m certain that this is the correct explanation.
I’m so stoked to see people grasp how unique the Ancient Wine Guys are - outside of a few prominent wine historians, there’s nobody bringing the history, the myths and the wines together in a way where you can savor the taste of antiquity while contemplating past, present and future. As you can tell, their program really inspires me, and I hope others will feel the same way.
Well … yes the Romans used lead in their kitchens and pipes. And yes they had a reputation for over-indulgence. Though it’s not clear that this was endemic to the culture, something that happened, or something that never happened. The writers who reported this behavior definitely had an axe to grind and wanted to make their subjects look bad.
But the roman word “Vomitorium” is absolutely not a room dedicated to vomiting, nor is it likely that such rooms ever existed. This is urban legend. The word vomitorium was used to describe the hallways in amphitheaters and other large public spaces through which large numbers of people could exit the building. Yes, they would spew forth as if the building were vomiting them, but they were designed for walking, not disgorging food.
Are you sure? This re-enactment looks historically accurate.
I may not be the Ancient Wine Guy who’s the expert on Roman history (I’ll leave that to Jeff), but I can say with utmost certainty that the depiction here by the esteemed Floridian philosopher Burt Reynolds was nothing but pure truth!
I do know, however, that the Romans often reclined/laid down while eating and drinking, which, if you happen to don a toga or bed sheet while enjoying our wines, reminds me of a piece of cultural heritage taught to me while in Finland visiting my family there…
Another great question Dave!! I won’t spoil it, but the “Drinking with Diocletian” pack explores exactly that!! In it, we travel to the Dalmatian Coast, where Diocletian retired to a palatial farm estate (modern Split in Croatia) and spent his remaining days growing vegetables and grapes for pressing! The cellars of his palace were enormous (as big as the upper floors) at the center of which was a massive wine press you can still see today… now that’s what I call retirement!!
Dana