Vine-growing and winemaking in the Roman world: new data and original perspectives

This book discusses the latest data and interpretations on vine-growing and winemaking in the Roman world. It explores in particular aspects of grapevine cultivation and wine production, along with associated technologies, economies and the historical and cultural processes that shaped ancient wine landscapes and industries. Through a geographically arranged structure, it covers large parts of the Mediterranean and beyond. This updated state of the field builds on a growing corpus of archaeological and historical research into production facilities and vineyards, to reveal new information on press function, cellaring systems and regional cultivation techniques. The syntheses and surveys presented within both expand and redefine existing datasets, providing testimony to the scale and nature of Roman winemaking. By focusing on production facilities and vineyard traces, this book also contributes to rebalancing scholarship biased towards the trade and movement of wine in amphorae. In the end, the 30 chapters collected illustrate not only the enormous advancements of this field, but also the diversity and vitality of grapevine and wine research in the Roman world, providing a new foundation for future studies on Roman viniculture.