From: wthyde1953@gmail.com
Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>> On 2025-10-06, The Horny Goat wrote:
>>>> And you can drink wine.
>>>
>
> And just what IS Falernian wine?
Falernian, Caecuban, Setinum Alban, and Massic are among the wines
favoured by historical novelists, but they are all real.
Falernian was grown on the slopes of a mountain of similar name, it was
white and said to be very strong. Apparently they don't grow grapes
there any longer.
The wine was so popular that counterfeiting became a problem. Pliny
and Galen both wrote that most of the Falernian they'd ever been offered
was fake. According to classical scholar and novelist David Wishart,
there was a heat-treatment that could make inferior wine taste more like
Falernian.
Caecuban, said by some to be better, was grown in Latinum. Nero dug up
the Caecuban vinyards looking for treasure. Some speculated that wine
growers from other areas started the rumor that queen Dido had buried
treasure there.
Wishart's series of novels have not yet reached Nero. I'd like to hear
his protagonist's view on Nero's action (in earlier books he's shown a
special love of Caecuban).
Galen is the last person who reported drinking Caecuban. It's hard to
imagine that it wasn't vinegar by his time, but it is said that this
wine took a long time to reach its peak, and perhaps some production
survived Nero. He also wrote positively about Falernian, which was
still a going concern.
I am confused by Caecuban's reported longevity. It was a white wine
which (if I can believe novelists) became darker with age, but white
wines are not known for longevity. As far as I know, anyway.
William Hyde
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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