Roman wine, and ancient wine more broadly, is enigmatic. While notable Roman figures wrote about wines, their properties, and which varieties make good laxatives, they seldom clarified how specific practices led to specific flavors. They also never hid any away for 21st century scholars to imbibe and assess.
New research by archaeologists Dimitri Van Limbergen and Paulina Komar, published in the journal Antiquity, illuminates some of the mysteries surrounding Roman wine. They might have even discovered the secret behind Rome’s finest wines.