Ancient Rome and wine Gaul. The Romans established lucrative trading relations with local tribes of Gaul, despite their potential to produce wine of their own. The Gallic tribes paid high prices for Roman wine, with a single amphora worth the value of a slave. From the Mediterranean coast, the Romans pushed further up the Rhone Valley, to areas where olives and figs were unable to grow but where oak trees were still found. As a result of their experience in what is now northeastern Italy, the Romans knew that regions where "Quercus ilex" were found had climates sufficiently warm enough to allow the full
History of wine name for the color "blue," the Greeks would simply refer to red wine's color. The earliest reference to a named wine is from the 7th-century BC lyrical poet Alcman, who praises "Dénthis", a wine from the western foothills of Mount Taygetus in Messenia, as "anthosmías" ("flowery-scented"). Chian was credited as the first red wine, although it was known to the Greeks as "black wine". Coan was mixed with sea water and famously salty; Pramnian or Lesbian wine was a famous export as well. Aristotle mentions Lemnian wine, which was probably the same as the modern-day Lemnió varietal, a red wine