Falernian wine

Falernian was a white wine with a relatively high alcohol content, possibly 30 proof, or 15% ABV. In describing Faustian Falernian, Pliny the Elder alluded to this as he noted "It is the only wine that takes light when a flame is applied to it".[5] A Flaming drink requires around 40% ABV. It was produced from late-harvested grapes exclusively as a brief freeze or a series of frosts were said to improve the resulting wine's flavor. The wine was typically allowed to maderise, aging for 15–20 years in clay amphorae before drinking. The oxidation gave the wine a color of amber to dark brown. In 37 BC, Varro wrote in Res Rusticae that Falernian increased in value as it matured,[6] and Pliny recorded that Falernian from the famed Opimian vintage of 121 BC was served at a banquet in 60 BC honoring Julius Caesar for his conquests in Spain.[7] There were three notable varieties: Dry (Latin austerum), Sweet (dulce), and Light (tenue).

The physician and gourmet Galen, writing c. AD 180, doubted that all the Falernian wine on sale in the Roman Empire could possibly be genuine. Evidently it was still all too popular at that date. It was one of the first wines to be exported to Britain while it was a Roman settlement, but for whatever reason, Falernian must have gradually lost favour under the later Roman empire, though it was still one of the seven named (and more expensive) wines whose maximum price for army purchase was laid down by the emperor Diocletian around AD 300.

As part of the ruins of ancient Pompeii, a price list on the wall of a bar establishment notes

For one "as" you can drink wine

For two you can drink the best

For four you can drink Falernian.[8]

The Roman poet Catullus extolled the virtues of Falernian in one of his poems

Come, boy, you who serve out the old Falernian,

fill up stronger cups for me,

as the law of Postumia, mistress of the revels, ordains,

Postumia more tipsy than the tipsy grape.

But water, begone, away with you, water,

destruction of wine, and take up abode

with scrupulous folk. This is the pure Thyonian god.[9]

The Roman poet Horace mentions Falernian in Odes 2.3:[10]

Remember when things are troublesome

to keep an even mind, and likewise in prosperity

Be careful of too much

happiness, mortal Dellius,

Whether you will have lived your time in sadness,

Or whether you might while away merry days

Sprawled out on country meadows

With a mellowed vintage of Falernian.

It was also the wine that Petronius, in the Satyricon, has Trimalchio serve at his dinner banquet. Quintus Dellius complained to Cleopatra that while he and other dignitaries were served sour wine by Antony in Greece, Augustus's catamite was drinking Falernian in Rome.[11] This refers to Sarmentus, the former slave of Marcus Favonius, who was bought by Octavian and whom enemies of Octavian claimed to be a catamite, although historian Josiah Osgood dismisses this as nothing more than a slander "planted by supporters of Marc Anthony".[12]

Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Book XIV. 6, 6-9, 2, describing Gauls ravaging Alban district during their expedition on Rome writes: "...There, as all gorged themselves with much food, drank much unmixed wine (the wine produced there is the sweetest of all wines after the Falernian and is the most like honey-wine), took more sleep than it was their custom..."

• Ancient Rome and wine

• Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London, New York: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-23259-7.