Ep. 1978 VIA 2024 - Magna Graecia  Where it all began? pt 2 of 3| Everybody Needs A Bit Of Scienza

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This the cup that we see, the cup of Nestor, which was discovered on the island of Ithia in nineteen fifty five, has a quote on it that is taken directly from the Iliad So this proves that the people in this settlement on ischia knew their homer. They had already read this. They were taking something that was from their written history and putting it into a new artifact So it was a direct correspondence. These drinking vessels have become really crucial to our understanding of how people moved over time. Every stage in Ulyssa's voyage there is discussion of these drinking vessels and sort of the the ceremony. They were called ski foy these vessels. Again, uniting people, but the archaeological proof that we have now goes beyond the actual epic poems that Homer wrote, we see direct correlation that the people in India had already read the Homer or already had it told to them, and they were able to recreate it in artifacts that we've now found. So it's fact meets myth So now we're looking at how during the expansion of the Greeks, there were two different paths, involving grapes. So there were the the segments of this expansion that evolved moving vines. So an agricultural, elemental, sort of fundamental part of starting a new colony where you had to provide for people. Something had to be grown and harvested. Versus the other segment where they brought wine. So they this is a much more cultural, ceremonial, a ritual, a way of learning how to use wine in a public way in a ceremony instead of using a vine in an agricultural, more fundamental way. So it was the elevation of going from a vine and a culture of people in a colony that were growing things. Now a culture of people in a colony that had public ceremonial rights using wine, making wine into some precious and malleable. Techno technological. I love this. Missouri says that the geeks gave us a lot of things, but actually it was a complete three hundred and sixty degree tech package. Which we can all understand though it was not only how to move vines from place to place, how to bait those vines as a food source, then how to use the fruit of the vines and vinify into wine, which is a secondary, product that be sold, and then also help use wine as a ceremonial and more mystical element of their culture that really brought the people up from being just local farmers into being people that had rituals and ceremonies and added value to the product they had made. The in in So again, this is where we have fact meeting, art, meeting myths. So the iconography of bunches of grapes, that we see in archaeological finds proves that there was already a huge biodiversity varieties of grapes because none of the grapes depicted are ever the same. So it wasn't just one type of grapes brought by the Greeks to Italy. It was many, many different kinds. So there was already a vast biodiversity of grapes existing in this ancient time, and we see the evidence of that through the archaeological artifacts. So then we've also discovered that money was decorated with bunches of grapes as well, which, allows us to understand that by this time, by the time they were creating coins with bunches of grapes on them it showed that grapes were valuable commodities, not just as a food item, but that they had a spiritual, cultural mystical inexplicable value. So they were stamped onto coins because, obviously, coins have a value too. So the the fact that they were using grapes as a symbol for money lets us know, how exalted grapes already were in the culture. In in twenty twenty. So looking at the map of the ancient vines, it's virtually impossible to translate these old ancient names into their corresponding modern varieties that are grown today. Professor points out Amina in the east. Also, Thazia could have possibly been vinified as sweet wines. That was the tradition there when we look sort of towards the north of Italy retica, where Nebulaiola would be Court Vina would be, we can only hypothesize exactly which binds these names related to because it's virtually impossible. But the point of the map is that, again, we see that there was already a noted named registered biodiversity of fines. Are you enjoying this podcast? There is so much more high quality wine content available for mama jumbo shrimp. Check out our new wine study maps or books on Italian wine including Italian wine unplugged and much much more. Just visit our website, mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Now back to the show. So when we look at Italian wines today, we see many grape varieties that have the word Greek incorporated into their name, such as Greco Dituho, Greco Dituho. And the use of the word Greek in these names does not mean that these vines came from Greece. It means that these grapes, when they were making wine back in in the ancient days, they were making the wine in the Greek method. So they used the word Greek to describe the wine making, not the provenance of the actual grape variety. In the phonological. I don't know. Lastika. So this is a list of vines from ancient Greece that we can more or less kind of extrapolate, what grapes they refer to now. And what professor is enjoying very much about this is how a lot of these names are really beautiful and expressive. Bibrino probably comes from a city called Biblos that was in Thres. This was brought over to Syracuse again on that eastern side of Sicily. So, corresponding probably to a Moscato in that area. Capnios has to do with this idea of carbonic, of coal, of carbon, and the smoky taste, and it's a positive that for possibly Capnios carbonic carbonate lent it self to that grape over time, which also can have that sort of smoky taste. Aminay was, again, as we saw in the eastern part of the ancient world, it provided a huge family of wines, huge family of different varieties of grapes, among them is Greco Ditufo. And then we were looking at mentos, Montonico, which actually is a variety from ancient Greece, And the name has to do with being a prophet and being able to see the future. So when people drank this wine and and lifted up their glass or their drinking vessel, obviously not a glass in those days, it was as if they were seeing the future. So a lot of these grapes get their names from lovely Greek words or words from the ancient world, like Biblino from Thres, that we can extrapolate what grape they are belonging to now in modern Italy It's not exactly clear, but we're looking more at wine styles from these names because the names are very descriptive. There are, I mean, So we're looking again at how these ancient names, transformed from the old Greek word, Galiapo meaning beautiful feet transformed into our Italian word that is referring to the stem, the entire bunch of the grape, how beautiful the Galliapo bunch and and stem are, before that we were looking at, which is is created by two twins, the Jamela, also Montonico created by the two twins and this idea of using a prophet. So we're discussing basically how the ancient Greek words, while they don't exactly translate into our varietals, the descriptiveness of them did translate into how we came up with the names in modern Italian for these grapes based on that, more of a description than an actual, factual thing. And this is Capnios that we talked about before that has this sort of gray smoky berries, and this was the grape that has kind of that smoky coal carbon, taste attributed to it, which lent itself to carbonate as well over time. So again, these are all, hypotheses based on what we see scientifically as we're looking at the actual grape and they called in the ancient world and how they came to have their modern names. So it's a combination of of ancient worlds but we can scientifically see and what we can sort of historically extrapolate over time. So a lot of grapes take their name from the style of of the wine making. So we're looking at grapes here, particularly that are suited for a passi mento. So that drying out period while they're still hanging on the vine. So fended late harvest, they've dried on the vine, or perhaps they've been laying in the ground as you can see top, right hand photograph there to dry in the sun. So a lot of grapes take their name also from this style of winemaking. In this case, it's a passimento, the idea of drying, either on the vine in the late harvest or after they've been harvested drying them again. All of these words in Greek were the names for the grape varietals, and each of these names really applies directly to what kind of wine was made from these grapes. So all of these were, a pastimento sweet style wine. So is a is a great variety. The name itself refers to the frame that we dry the grapes on, boccognate boccognate, has a particular resin pine like taste that we are used to finding in an Apassimiento style wine, Scripula is talking about the twist of the bunch on the stem as it dries. So, again, we're talking about Apassimiento here. Ramna, the amount of mus running out after the grape has been dried and then sitia, which means sweetening with honey. But again, what it means is that this grape would be produced in a wine style that was sweet. So all of these are ancient words referring to specific techniques that would provide a sweet wine. In, is a very typical So we're looking at the Alvarado training style, which is one of the most ancient existing methods of training grapevines. The Greeks brought it to it linked. The picture showing letter a, where the grapes grow out sort of in a straight line. That's still used in Greece, that method of of growing. B, is the type of albirello method where it needs to be held up by a pole. So the the vine will be supported by a pole. And, c, is the style used often on Pantalaria where there's sort of a small little moat dug around the vine. The vine is allowed to grow with, three or more primary shoots so that it grows into a small tree shape that protects itself. From wind and and harsh sun. So three different methods of Alvarado style, all still in existence, all still in use. Listen to the Italian wine podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, we're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcast spotify, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. 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