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
Ancient Rome and wine archaeological evidence to suggest that the Celts first cultivated the grapevine in Gaul. Grape pips have been found throughout France, pre-dating the Greeks and Romans, with some examples found near Lake Geneva dated to 10,000 BC. The extent to which the Celts and Gallic tribes produced wine is not clearly known, but the arrival of the Greeks near Massalia in 600 BC certainly introduced new types and styles of winemaking and viticulture. The limit of Greek viticultural influence was planting in regions with Mediterranean climates where olives and fig trees would also flourish. The Romans looked for hillside terrain in