I understand that grapes, vines, winemaking, etc. etc. has all evolved tremendously over the past couple of thousand of years so this is likely an impossible task to accomplish. But, I have always been interested in finding a wine which tries their best to replicate what they believe was the wine our ancestors were drinking. I’d imagine that ancient wine made today would be absolutely disgusting to us, but it would be a fun experiment to look at and see how winemaking has evolved to what it is today.
The only wine I know of which has tried something like this to an extent is G.D. Vajra Claré J.C. Langhe Nebbiolo which attempts to create a Nebbiolo from Thomas Jefferson’s tasting notes. I also vaguely remember reading an article about a year ago or so about an ancient winery in Israel being found IIRC? Some California winemaker had rebuilt the facility there with the ancient vines and was releasing their wine soon. I could be remembering this all completely wrong though…
Certainly a few that aim for a historical style, albeit often with some compromise.
Most obvious is the Mastroberardino wine ‘Villa del misteri’, which is grown within the grounds of historic Pompeii, and was intended to be strongly influenced by the methods and grapes that may have been used back then, but IIRC that principle has been rather compromised. See @Otto_Forsberg’s recent tasting notes on the wine.
Another one I tasted recently was a ‘Medieval de Ourem’ Rosé, a rather richly coloured wine (more like a light red than a rose), but ironically was a 80/20 blend of fernao pires (white) and Trincadeira (red), with the method used referencing an approach used back in medieval era (IIRC white starts fermenting, then red juiceadded in part way through with co-fermentation to finish)
This answer is more about ancient grape varieties than vinification techniques. Zorah in Armenia is making wine from the Areni grape, which traces its origin back 6000+ years. They claim it’s likely the oldest varietal being produced today. There is a fascinating I’ll Drink To That podcast episode on it.
Scholium Project? Not my style of wines, but I think the intention is to make wines like they used to be made. Mostly funky and undrinkable to me, but I know folks dig those.
Yes, but let’s not go way too ancient, unless you want a wine that tastes like pine’s resin
“Winemaking equipment in 1000BC was not quite as advanced as it is now, and the clay amphorae used to ferment the wines weren’t particularly airtight. So sap from the region’s pine trees was used to plug the holes and coat the inside of the vessels to prevent oxidization.”
If you ferment in an air tight vessel, it will explode.
Amphorae were vessels for transportation and storage. It’s at that point where a wine is complete that you want to seal it up.
Sap is also an antimicrobial. But, retsina is just one from a long list of practices the ancients employed. So, let’s not make the mistake of assuming all ancient wines were like terrible bottom shelf retsina. It’s the cheapest, so something that would work for (out of season) peasant wine. Other practices look better and intriguing. You can read quite a bit about what they did, how they described the wines, etc. Roman elites made wines that aged well. Sites as old as 6000 years show large production. This was a wildly successful product, widely traded.
Plenty of antimicrobial herbs/plant material that would add interesting character to a wine. Other additives were used. Sap isn’t the only sealant. Sap as a sealant doesn’t really need to get into the wine - though on a cheap level some likely would. Again, the level of sap in modern retsina is there as a preservative.
I don’t remember where exactly I read that there were indications that ancient wines could have tasted like resin, but this quote, in particular, came from an article published in wine-searcher.com that I came across while searching for the original article.
The terra cotta used now is much different than those used in the past. We can fire at much higher temperatures so the clay becomes liquid impermeable. In the past, it wasn’t that way.
When we lived in France lo these many years ago, supermarkets (which were just coming in, lots of retail was still sold from specialty shops) would sell cheap Algerian wine direct from the barrel. Cheaper than Coke! But it was rough stuff, you pretty much had to add water just to make it drinkable.
