What is the difference between modern wine and the Romans' wine?

Answer 1

They had grapes that were very different from what we consider "wine" grapes today. They varied in taste, climate, size, and season. The wine was also made differently. Many tiems they did things like what we see in comedy such as putting all of the grapes in a tub and walking on them to get the juice out.

Answer 2

Good question!

I can only find limited information on the nature of beer in the Roman world. We know beer had been around for thousands of years before the Roman Empire, and since it's mentioned in many primary sources, we can be sure they drank it. What exactly was in it, however, is something we don't know quite as well.

The main ingredients in what we now know as beer are malted barley, hops, and yeast. Barley was present in ancient Rome, but the region favors grape growing to barley growing and it does seem that wine was greatly preferred. So it's possible that they were brewing beer with barley, also possibly with wheat and other cereal grains, since their neighbors had certainly been doing that for quite some time. Hops did not see use until much later, but it's possible that something was used in its place (for flavor, bitterness, preservation etc).

I think the largest difference would arise in the yeast, or lack thereof. We did not know that yeast was alive and produced alcohol until the 19th century, so the Romans certainly had no knowledge of it. Indeed this fact may the reason for the many spiritual/religious connections that Alcoholic Beverages have in pre-scientific societies.

In modern brewing we directly inoculate wort (unfermented beer) with a specific yeast strain (and occasionally bacteria), depending on what kind of beer we want to make- different strains of yeast can effect the flavor of beer dramatically. Sanitation practices are observed strictly to ensure that only the yeast we desire is present in the beer. There are exceptions to this (see: Lambic brewing, for example) but this is the general idea.

Prior to knowledge of sanitation and microbes, beer would have been spontaneously fermented, that is, left in an open vat to collect whatever yeast and bacteria happen to be floating around. This would give beer made in different areas distinct flavors as that areas germs differed from other areas (indeed this is where we get different yeast strains today). This would produce a perfectly drinkable beer, but it would probably be quite sour and foul tasting compared to what we drink today.

Also possible is direct inoculation via the mouth of the brewer... this is still occurring today in South America, where the brewer spits into the mash in order to begin fermentation. Gross, but it gets the job done.

Other differences would of course arise because we have a much greater ability to control all facets of the production than they ancient people did. We can control fermentation temperature, we can use chemistry to analyze various facets of the process, etc, all of which lead to a better, more repeatable product.

Hope this helps!