Falerno – Timeless Italy Travels

“…the only wine that takes flight when a flame is applied to it.”

Pliny the Elder

The year is 115 AD, with Imperial Rome at the height of its power. The Commissatio is just beginning. Banquets were commonly hosted by an upper class couple in their villa, with several guests invited to partake of delectable feasting and conversation. Let me explain the commissatio as a cheerful game of toasts, after the banquet, which goes on late into the evening with almost everyone …….drunk! There is a whole cast of wines available, from cheap to vile, which would come from Vatican Hill or Marseille. But, a high-class commissatio offered the most excellent wine to be had; Falerno, wine of the gods, produced in northern Campania, the region of Naples. Wine was poured into a krater, and goblets dipped into it to be hastily consumed in one gulp as part of a game. Pliny the Elder and Horace raved about this particular wine as supremo above all others. They lifted Falerno into a legendary status.

As legend goes, Falernus, an old Roman farmer, was visited by Bacchus on his humble farm on his mountain. Falernus prepared him a simple meal, and in gratitude Bacchus filled all the cups at the table with wine. When Falernus awoke the next morning, Bacchus had vanished. He looked over his land and saw that his entire mountain, Mt. Falernus, was covered with vines.

Falerno was grown in three vineyards on the slopes of Mt. Falernus, or Mt. Mossico (on the border between Latium and Campania). Today the area encompasses the Falerno del Massico DOC, where the primary grapes grown are Falanghina, Aglianico and Piedirosso.

Falerno, a predecessor to ice wine, was originally a white wine with a stratospheric alcohol content of 16%. It was produced from late-harvest grapes that had experienced a frost or two and let to dry. The wine was aged for 15-20 years in clay amphorae before drinking. It was amber to dark brown due to oxidation. Varro, in 37 BC, recorded the fact that Falernian wine increased in value as it matured. Pliny the Elder mentioned that Falernian from the famed vintage of 121 BC (vintage of a lifetime), was served to Julius Caesar in 60 BC at a banquet celebrating his conquest of Spain. This particular vintage was celebrated for decades.

Made from the Aglianico (red) grape and/or Greco di Tufo (white) grape, Falernian became a byword for luxury. Recorded as having a strong, fruity flavor, Pliny described Falerno as three types–“the rough, the sweet and the thin.”

Falernian stood the test of time well as a top-ranking Roman wine for at least five centuries. Popular among the emperors and the wealthy, not all of them thought highly of it. Marcus Aurelius, an emperor who usually shrugged at the finer things in life, kept a good perspective about this wine: “After all”, he wrote, even “Falernian wine is just juice from a bunch of grapes.”

“It has passed into a proverb, that wisdom is overshadowed by wine.
Pliny the Elder (Caius Plinius Secundus), Roman officer and encyclopedist, (23-79)

The properties of wine making are very possibly Rome’s most lasting contribution to the world today. What began as wild grapes that grew throughout the mediterranean region, cultivated by the Greeks and Etruscans, and embellished to an art by the Romans, is now considered an essential ingredient to socializing and fine dining.

The rise of the ancient Roman Empire saw an increase in technology and awareness of wine making which spread to all parts of the empire. Because the Romans held the attitude that wine was a daily necessity of life, wine became democratic and available to everyone regardless of class. By the 2nd century BC, wine and grape production soared. Large slave-run vineyards dotted the peninsula along the coastline. As the Roman empire expanded, wine and viticulture was introduced throughout the regions to ensure steady supplies for Roman soldiers and colonists. Conquered territories, such as France, Germany, Portugal and Spain traded with the Romans for wine even before the Romans annexed the regions and cultivated vineyards.

Unlike the Greeks and Etruscans, the Romans took a deep interest in the art of wine making. They cared about the quality of the wine, its taste, its aroma and its flavor. Some of the earlier wines, which tended to be harsh, could be ignited due to the high amount of alcohol, so it was necessary to dilute wine with seawater. Flavor changing properties were added to wine including honey, herbs and/or spices of all sorts, and chalk added to reduce acidity.

Roman historians Pliny the Elder and Horace claimed the best wine to be Falerno, produced in northern Campania, the region of Naples. Martial, however, prefered the wine of Albano, from the same area south of Rome that today produces the popular wines of the castelli romani. And finally Horace, who was fond of Caleno (a wealthy persons wine), Massico, and Cecubo, produced near Fondi, in the south of Lazio, which he considers “generous and strong.”

Almost all of these wines were preferably stored for generations in beautiful amphorae, slender and elegant, with elongated handles and necks. Horace gives specific instructions on how to taste aged wine, stating the best to be the Albano which was aged for nine years. You sip the wine, he says, together with your lover.

So how has all of this Roman viticulture carried down through the centuries to our wine making practices today?

To begin with, they developed the attitude that wine should be available to everyone (populi) and established its importance in everyday life. As a result, vineyards were planted and cultivated throughout the Roman Empire whose borders encompassed most of Europe. As far as wine production, they introduced props and trellises in wine growing, improved the presses used for extracting juice, and classified which groups of grapes grew best in which climates. They sought to develop a better taste with aged wine, and they were the first to store it in wooden barrels. It is likely that they were the first to store wine in glass jars with corks.

Many thanks to monks in European monasteries who, after the fall of Rome, kept the art of wine-making alive and well.

Today, wine consumption is still enjoyed by many and brings a strong connection within the realm of socializing. It is continually being improved upon and perfected by wine-makers all over the world. And to this day, as Horace instructed, wine is still to be ‘sipped together with one’s lover.’