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
Stirrup jar had uncovered them from the Troy VI layer at Troy (destroyed 1250 BC). The handles look like stirrups. The neck between the stirrups is a false one, leading to the synonym "false-necked jar." The real spout projects from the upper flank. There is a mechanical advantage to holding the stirrups and tilting the jar up from the bottom to pour from the side, over turning the flasks with similar stirrups but a real neck nearly upside down to pour. Stirrup jars are made of clay, which in unworked form occurs in beds of particles of a certain size formed from