Provence wine Cassis specializing in white wine production. The Côtes de Provence is the largest AOC followed by the Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence. The Bandol region near Toulon is one of the more internationally recognized Provençal wine regions. The exact time when viticulture began in Provence is difficult to calculate. Early inhabitants may have used indigenous vines to produce wine before the Phocaean Greeks settled Massalia in 600 BC. Archaeological evidence, in the form of amphora fragments, indicate that the Greeks were producing wine in the region soon after they settled. By the time the Romans reached the area in 125 BC, the wine
Ancient Rome and wine also given impetus by the changing Roman diet. In the 2nd century BC, Romans began to shift from meals consisting of moist porridge and gruel to those more bread-based; wine aided in eating the drier food. Wine played a major role in ancient Roman religion and Roman funerary practices, and was the preferred libation for most deities. The invention of wine was usually credited to Liber and his Greek equivalents, Bacchus (later Romanised) and Dionysus, who promoted the fertility of human and animal semen, and the "soft seed" of the vine. Ordinary, everyday, mixed wines were under the protection of