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 in what is now the Burgundy wine region. While it is possible that vineyards were planted in the 1st century AD, shortly after the founding of Augustodunum, the first definitive evidence of wine production comes from an account of the visit by Emperor Constantine to the city in 312 AD. The founding of France's other great wine regions is not as clear. The Romans' propensity for planting on hillsides has left archaeological evidence of Gallo-Roman vineyards in the chalk hillsides of Sancerre. In the 4th century, the Emperor Julian had a vineyard near Paris on the hill of Montmartre, and