souvenir catalogue from...privernian not in the least likely to go to one‟s head (athenaeus)...

Souvenir catalogue from

Dionysus‟ vineyard

A taste of our wine…

Taste this wine! It comes from vines planted

on slopes just under Mount Taygetus‟ summit

by old Theotimos, a friend of immortals

who moistens his acres with Platanistus

spring water...

This wine puts human cares to instant flight!

It looks, and it tastes, like drinkable light!

(Theognis)

Cupids sample our vintage. 1st century AD fresco from the House of the Vettii, Pompeii.

First select your wine…

Galen recommends you rate wine by colour, taste, consistency (“body”), smell, and strength. Our winelist From Sicily Pollian Made by Pollis of Argos, ruler of Syracuse From Spain Massilian Full bodied, “meaty”

1st century AD Plaque from Pompeii showing the transport of amphorae.


Roman Wine Falernian Aged 10-20 years, from Mount Falernus on the border between Latium and Campania, made from the Aminean grape, sweet, dark, good for the stomach, strong: 15-16% Alban Sweet with an acidic edge Sorrentine Earthy, best drunk after maturing for 25 years according to Galen. When young it is dry and light/watery Sabine Low in alcohol Spoletine Sweet, golden Massic Very dry

Tetradrachma of Mendaion of Macedon, c.460-423 BC. Inebriated Dionysos reclining on back of an ass, head turned right, holding a kantharos in extended right hand; crow standing on small bush with two branches before / MENDAION, vine of 5 grape clusters within linear square.


Roman Wine (cont.) Tibertine Light Privernian Not in the least likely to go to one‟s head (Athenaeus) Erbulan Low in alcohol, dark Fundan Full bodied Venafran Good for the stomach Caecuban From Latium, is strong and packs a punch, but the vineyards were dug up by Nero for the construction of a canal. Tarentine “Doesn‟t hit you because it has no strength, it is sweet and good for the stomach” (Athenaeus)

Knidian amphorae, 3rd to 1st centuries BC. © www.agathe.gr


Greek wine Pramnian From Lesbos, Icaria or Smyrna; a dark wine of good quality with aging potential (Athenaeus) Mendean A white wine with a fresh flavour Chian Horace‟s favourite; highly prized Lesbian Salty; a honeyed sweet wine Maronean Prized by Odysseus for its strength; particularly potent for Cyclopes Thasian Light bodied wine with a scent of apples Coan From Cos; made with sea-water, giving it a distinctively salty flavour Rhodian Praised by Virgil as fit for the gods

Accept no substitutes! Our amphorae are clearly marked for easy

identification - don‟t be fooled by rip-off imitations!

Coan

Knidian

Corinthian

© www.agathe.gr

Sinopean

Accept no substitutes!

Thasian

© www.agathe.gr

Rhodian (ii)

Rhodian (i)


Drawing of the Eleusis amphora (a Proto-Attic amphora, c.650BC. Eleusis, Archaeological Museum2630): detail of neck showing the blinding of Polyphemos. Watercolor by Piet de Jong. Photographer: Craig Mauzy.

Considering the occasion and reason for drinking wine should lead you to the right choice.

„...I had with me a great skin of sweet wine, and I thought that if I could make the

Cyclops drunken with wine I and my companions might be able to overcome him.

...I went to the terrible creature with a bowl of wine in my hands. He took it and

drank it and cried out, “Give me another bowl of this, and tell me thy name that I

may give thee gifts for bringing me this honey-tasting drink.” Again I spoke to

him guilefully and said, “My name is Noman.” “Give me more of the drink,

Noman,” he shouted. “And my gift to you I be that I will eat you last.” I gave him

wine again, and when he had taken the third bowl he sank backwards with his face

upturned, and sleep came upon him.

Odysseus (aka Ulysses aka “Noman”), Homer Odyssey IX

Some advice in case you have difficulty choosing

Then when you take up a full measure of Zeus the Saviour, It ought to be an old, quite grey-headed Wine, its moist hair covered with a white flower, That you drink, a wine from wave-girt Lesbos by birth. I also praise the Bibline wine from holy Phoenicia, Although I do not rank it equal to Lesbian. For if You are previously unacquainted with it and taste it for the first time, You will think it more fragrant than Lesbian, For it retains this quality on account of its great age. But when it is drunk, it is much inferior, whereas Lesbian wine Will seem to you to share the rank of ambrosia rather than of wine. And if some emptyheadedbrainlessbullshitartists mockingly assert That Phoenician wine is best of all, I pay them no attention. Thasian wine as well is good to drink, if it is the eldest by many lovely seasons of years. I am able to mention the vine-shoots dripping with grape-clusters from other cities as well, And am not unaware of how to praise and name them. But the others are just nothing compared with Lesbian wine, Although some people like to praise what they have in their own land. Archestratos

Drink with care!

Boy! Here! Kindly Fill this bowl of mine. I want my first swallow. Careful! The correctest mix Is water twelve parts, and wine six! I want to follow The God of Wine But not blindly! Leave the quaffing of neat tots To Scythians, and such as Scots!

(Anacreon)

Wine affects behaviour and character and stimulates artistic creativity…

Then mix your wine… Recommended proportions

“Hesiod recommends”: 1 wine : 3 water “Average”: 3 water : 2 wine “A little reckless”: 4 water : 3 wine “Madness”: 1 water : 1 wine “Barbaric”: neat wine Note: Zaleucus, the lawgiver of Italian Locri, established the death penalty for drinking unmixed wine, save on a physician‟s orders. (Athenaeus, 10.33) Odysseus mixes his “fabulously strong” wine from Maron in Thrace in a ratio of 1 wine : 20 water (Homer, Odyssey 9.209)

The Triumph of Bacchus. 3rd century AD Roman mosaic. Sousse Museum, Tunisia

Then mix your wine…

Amphictyon, king of Athens, learned from Dionysus the art of mixing wine, and was the first to mix it. So it was that men came to stand upright, drinking wine mixed, whereas before they were bent double by the use of unmixed wine. Hence he founded an altar of the „upright‟ Dionysus (Dionysus Orthos) in the shrine of the Seasons; for these make ripe the fruit of the vine. Near it he also built an altar to the Nymphs to remind devotees of the mixing; for the Nymphs are said to be the nurses of Dionysus. He also instituted the custom of taking just a sip of unmixed wine after meat, as a proof of the power of the good god, but after that they might drink mixed wine, as much as each man chose. They were also to repeat over this cup the name of Zeus the Saviour as a warning and reminder to drinkers that only when they drank in this fashion would they surely be safe.

(Philochorus FGrH 328 F5b trans. Gluck)

Then select a cup befitting your wine.

Commemorate your favourite drinking party. Attic red -figure kylix by the Antiphon Painter, 490–480BC. Height 12.7 cm (5 in) Diameter 39.7 cm (15 ½ in) Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Have Dionysus as a drinking companion. Attic red-figure novelty rhyton (drinking horn), 500-490 BC. St Giles, London. © Claire Houck 2008

Find Dionysus as you drink your last drop. Attic black-figure kylix by Exekias, c. 530BC. Staatliche Antikensammlungen, 2044, Munich. © Matthias Kabel, 2006.


The Lycurgus Cup Late Roman, 4th century AD

© Trustees of the British Museum


The scene on the cup depicts an episode from the myth of Lycurgus, a king of the Thracians (around 800 BC). A man of violent temper, he attacked Dionysos and one of his maenads, Ambrosia. Ambrosia called out to Mother Earth, who transformed her into a vine. She then coiled herself about the king, and held him captive. The cup shows this moment when Lycurgus is entrapped by the branches of the vine, while Dionysos, a Pan and a satyr torment him for his evil behaviour. © Trustees of the British Museum

This extraordinary cup is the only complete example of a very special type of glass, known as dichroic, which changes colour when held up to the light. The glass contains tiny amounts of colloidal gold and silver, which give it these unusual optical properties.


Augustan silver skyphos (cup) with relief decoration of cupids. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Roman (Augustan) Cameo Glass Two-Handled Cup, last quarter of the first century B.C.E. to the first quarter of the first century C.E. Getty Villa, Malibu, California.

Dionysus, the God of Wine, encourages you to

drink responsibly

“For sensible men I prepare only three craters: one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home. The fourth crater is not mine any more – it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.”

(Euboulos: comic playwright) “The tenth crater belongs to madness, who causes people to fall down; because too much wine poured into one little vessel trips up very easily those who have drunk it.”

(Euboulos: comic playwright)

Dionysian madness

This large vase, designed to carry water for ritual baths, depicts the myth of Lycurgus, a Thracian king who banned the worship of Dionysus. Lycurgus holds the body of his wife, whom he has just stabbed. On his right a snake-wielding Fury with a panther at her feet symbolizes the madness caused by Dionysus. Munich, Antikensammlung. © Barbara McManus, 2005. Image courtesy of VRoma, www.vroma.org

Our prices are competitive

“For one as you can drink wine; for two, you can drink the best wine; for four, you can drink Falernian.” (Pompeiian Taverna sign) In Pompeii in 79AD wine cost between one and four asses per sextarius (pint) at a time when a loaf of bread cost two asses.

The man on left calls to the barmaid ,“Over here!” (hoc). The man on right says, “No, it's mine.” (non / mia est). The barmaid carries a cup and wine jug and comments, “The man who ordered this will get it. Oceanus, come here and drink” (qui vol / sumat / Oceane / veni bibe). 1st century AD Pompeiian taverna fresco. © www.colorado.edu/classics

Wine recipes

For those of a more adventurous disposition, may we recommend some Mulsum? The best is made of Falernian mixed with Attic honey and is a drink suitable to be poured by Ganymede, cupbearer to Zeus (Martial XIII.108).

Dionysus brings wine to Ikarios. 3rd-4th century AD mosaic from the House of Dionysus in Paphos.

Wine recipes Original Recipe

Conditum Paradoxum from Apicius' De Re Coquinaria (“The Art of Cookery”) Conditi paradoxi compositio: mellis pondo XV in aeneum vas mittuntur, praemissis vini sextariis duobus, ut in coctura mellis vinum decoquas. quod igni lento et aridis lignis calefactum, commotum ferula dum coquitur, si effervere coeperit, vini rore compescitur, praeter quod subtracto igni in se redit. cum perfrixerit, rursus accenditur. hoc secundo ac tertio fiet, ac tum demum remotum a foco post pridie despumatur. tum â€¹mittesâ€º piperis uncias IV iam triti, masticis scripulos III, folii et croci dragmae singulae, dactilorum ossibus torridis quinque, isdemque dactilis vino mollitis, intercedente prius suffusione vini de suo modo ac numero, ut tritura lenis habeatur. his omnibus paratis supermittis vini lenis sextaria XVIII. carbones perfecto aderunt [duo milia].

Wine recipes The composition of this excellent spiced wine is as

follows. Into a copper bowl put 6 sextarii of honey and 2 sextarii of wine; heat on a slow fire, constantly stirring the mixture with a whip. At the boiling point add a dash of cold wine, retire from stove and skim. Repeat this twice or three times, let it rest till the next day, and skim again. Then add 4 ounces of crushed pepper, 3 scruples of mastic, a drachm each of nard or laurel leaves and saffron, 5 drachms of roasted date stones crushed and previously soaked in wine to soften them. When this is properly done add 18 sextarii of light wine. To clarify it perfectly, add crushed charcoal twice or as often as necessary which will draw the residue together.

“The first wine-drinkers” (hoi protoi oinonpiontes)

Wine recipes The preceding recipe gives a means of making a fine

spiced wine, however the description for mixing wine and honey is precisely the way of making mulsum. This recipe records a more complex process than that needed in modern terms because modern honey is more refined and does not contain those pieces of comb and other impurities that ancient honey would have done. For the modern wine preparer, here is a redaction:

1st century AD frescoe from the lararium in the House of the Centenary in Pompeii, depicting Bacchus (aka Dionysus) as a bunch of grapes and vineyards on Mount Vesuvius. National Archaeological Museum, Naples.

Wine recipes Modern Redaction

Ingredients: 200ml Honey 750ml white wine (dry or medium dry) Mulsum Preparation: This is the classic Roman drink, made by adding 200ml of honey to a bottle of white wine. Make on the day of serving, keep in the refrigerator and serve well chilled. For this drink the honey should be married to the wine. An acacia honey for a Chardonnay or something more flowery like a clover honey for a Pinot Grigio. Orange blossom honey could be married to just about any wine. To “marry” the wine and the honey pour a little wine into a glass and dissolve the honey in it, then pour the mixture into the bottle of wine. Leave it for at least two or three hours in the refrigerator. Before drinking make sure no honey is at the bottom of the bottle, if this is the case, mix well before serving. The Emperor Augustus claimed Mulsum was good for the digestion and for both being and staying youthful.

Meet our staff

A satyr uses a wine press consisting of a pile of round wicker-work mats. 1st century AD fragmentary Roman

terracotta relief. British Museum D550.

Meet our staff

Silens making wine and drinking the grape juice. Attic black-figure amphora, c.540BC.

Antikenmuseum, Basel.

The God of Wine delights in the vintage, which is serendaded with pipe music. Attic black-figure dish,

520-510BC. Antikenmuseum, Basel.

Meet our staff

1st century AD frescoes from the House of the Vettii, Pompeii.

Above: Cupids engage in the wine-making and storage (ageing) processes.

Below: Having made the wine, Cupids taste it and prepare it

for transport to the buyer in amphorae.

Storage

Amphorae in racks in the House of the Wine Seller, Herculaneum.

All our wines are sold in high-quality amphorae for easy transport and storage.

Amphorae in a shop facing onto Cardo IV Superiore in Herculaneum.

Why not visit our Leeds branch?

King Edward House (1904) by architect Frank Matcham

Why not visit our Leeds branch?

This image of Bacchus/Dionysus, in Burmantofts vitreous mosaic, advertises the location of the King Edward Restaurant, serving fine wines for your delectation.

Souvenir Catalogue from

Dionysus‟ Vineyard

Designed by Anna Reeve

Masters student, Classics, University of Leeds

Based on primary sources

and research by Dr Roger Brock,

correlated by Dr Eleanor OKell

souvenir catalogue from...privernian not in the least likely to go to one‟s head (athenaeus)...

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