Ancient Greece and wine have been uncovered by archaeologists, demonstrating the scope of Greek influence. A shipwreck discovered off the coast of southern France included nearly 10,000 amphoras containing nearly of Greek wine, presumably destined for trade up the Rhône and Saône rivers into Gaul. It is estimated that the Greeks shipped nearly 10 million liters of wine into Gaul each year through Massalia. In 1929, the discovery of the Vix Grave in Burgundy included several artifacts demonstrating the strong ties between Greek wine traders and local Celtic villagers. The most notable of these was a large Greek-made krater, designed to hold over of
Ancient Rome and wine enhance flavor, white wine might age on its lees, and chalk or marble dust was sometimes added to reduce acidity. Wines were often exposed to high temperatures and "baked," a process similar to that used to make modern Madeira. To enhance a wine's sweetness, a portion of the wine must was boiled to concentrate the sugars in the process known as "defrutum" and then added to the rest of the fermenting batch. (Columella's writings suggest that the Romans believed boiling the must acted as a preservative as well.) Lead was also sometimes used as a sweetening agent, but honey could