Ep. 1987 VIA 2024 - Magna Graecia  Where it all began? pt 3 of 3 | Everybody Needs A Bit Of Scienza

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian winegeeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian Great Geek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pods. Morning. Warning. This podcast contains information in Italian language. In the past, this podcast contains information in Italian, Chinchin. Welcome to this special everybody needs a bit of Shenza' edition of the Italian wine podcast. Here's the premise. The Italy international academy community members send us their questions for Via chief scientist professoratio Shenza. We record his answers and Stevie Kim tries to keep him in line. Sometimes it works. Thank you for listening. Okay. And also. The long So we're looking at the three different training forms. Where Carax is the one that's, still mostly typical in the south of France where the vine is supported by one single pole. Einitron is in Southern Italy. This is the type of training form that gave us the name Inetria, which Italy was referred to as Inetria in the ancient world, it does not mean land of vines. It means a land where grape vines are grown supported by two or three canes. So you can see the difference between Carax, one pole. Onitron is supported by two or three canes. And then Helios is where grapevines were supported by other living plants, usually trees, and the vine had to twist itself around the the supporting plant, the supporting tree in order to grow. The in, so the the different training methods became so important in distinguishing the different cultivation areas that they started to give names to the areas themselves. So you can see the dividing line that takes in a little bit of puglia, Calabrio, and then north of that when we start to get up into, Campania and Tulaccio, Duiscia, the northern part was Ointron. So supported by two or three canes, and the south was Carax supported by one pole. So in Ointron, you can see that the vines can be slightly taller. It's a less windy place. In the south car accident with their pole, they were closer to the ground to protect them from strong winds. I'm gonna that that is the only person that is the only person that is the only person. So in Campania, this is sort of where all the all the cultures collided. And we see very different influences just in this one tiny zone. So, Campania, when we think, you know, Italy is smaller than California, we're looking at a tiny, tiny space in Campania where the Greek influence remained in the southern part of the region. And then the etruscan region in the northern part, near Irpina, near ischia on the island, where the grapes were growing more up on the canes or up on the trees. In the Greek influence, they were they were still down on the Carrax side of things. Even now, we see this difference. In the northern part of Compania, there's Espigna that's more espelier. And in the southern part of Compania, there's Espigna that is still Alvarelo style. So these influences have held on for thousands of years. Again, this is where archaeology is helping us to decode what was actually happening in Viticulture in the ancient world. So Pompeii, we see here a mosaic taken from Pompeii was clearly influenced by the etruscans. We see the grapes growing up the trees, growing much taller on supports. If this had been influenced by the Greeks, it would have been the smaller arboros closer to the ground. So archaeology is helping us to understand what was happening. And Pompeo is in the more northern part of Campania, so their etruscan influence is more evidenced here. I'm Again, archaeology helping us to to prove our theories of how winemaking arrived. We see here on the top right that is Apalmento from Calabrio. So Apalmento was the Greek pressing system, how they pressed their grapes. So it was, a container on the floor level. The grapes were pressed by by feet, pressure. And this Calabrian Palmenta that we see in the photograph shows the exact same dimensions of each container that we've found in ancient Greece, and the ones in ancient Greece were very specific that the top container had to be a certain measurement, the second container, and the bottom container very specific measurements, and this Calabrian, ancient Palmetto has the exact same measurements as those in ancient Greece. So we see a direct archaeological line from pressing of grapes in Greece, to pressing of grapes in ancient Italy. This is a mosaic from Pompeii where we the same thing. We see the pressing in a palmetto in this ancient Greek style with specifically these containers lined up the way they would have been in ancient Greece, and yet this is in ancient Italy. So we see that direct connection. You know. This photograph comes from Bosco Raleigh near Naples. Hamfras were used for fermenting and for transportation. So they were completely synchronized with winemaking from the caucuses, specifically in Georgia, where they used amphfra's terracotta amphoras for fermenting and transport. But the interesting thing about the different shapes of the amphora, each amphora was like a wine label. They didn't have wine labels then, but each shape showed it a different provenance. So where the wine came from, it showed a different commercial value. So the cost of the wine, the shape of the amphra, we're learning now had a lot to do with how these wines were presented commercially. And how each one, you know, like NFTs that we're using now was able to show exactly where the wine had come from, and we are finding them in sunken ships in the Mediterranean, where they've been pretty well preserved. So we can see the provenance of the ship, the provenance of the amphra, the provenance of the grape, and the different styles of amphra will tell us the commercial value of these different wines. The first day, So now we're looking at wine moving away from being agricultural and a and a food element into this more, cultural and symbolic wealth that was given to us in all of this Greek material. So we're looking at the the mythology behind wine, the ecstasy from drinking wine, using wine as a symbol using it to celebrate our ceremonial rights and rituals. We still do this today. In our marriage festivals, you know, all kinds of celebrations where we use sparkling wine or or wine for toasting anything stems directly from this Greek cultural heritage where wine was used in a ceremonial way. So now we're looking at how wine becomes a method of communication between, our human selves on earth and the gods above. So a Penax was an offering. So a tiny little cup filled with wine. We see here the the person who is coming to make this offering to make his request to the gods for for whatever he whatever he's asking for. He has a a stem of bunches of grapes over his back. So we know that what's in this cup is bound to be wine. And here we're looking at an offering, you know, so this is a barter between the gods and the humans where they need something. So they're they're giving the wine as they're offering hoping to get a favor back from the gods. So here we're looking at, how wine represents in the Christian faith when we harvest the grape. It's the death of the grape, but then we have the rebirth of the wine. So the the pressing and the crushing of the grapes when they go through the screw, to to de stem them. It's symbolic of the cross that Christ was crucified on. So the death of Christ and then the rebirth if Christianity is your faith. In wine, we've got the harvest is the death of the grape, and the fermentation and the creating of the wine is the rebirth of the grape as wine. So it's been transformed just the way that, Christians believe that Christ has been transformed as well by death. So very, very similar story between the Diane myth and the Christ myth. Mistic. Just talking about the symbolic value through production, the location of the production, the method of the production, and then the use of the wine in social rituals. Okay. Story. So the development of of the concept of Symposio, the word means, drink together. We're talking about ceremonies and festivals and coming together of people where drinking of wine is shared. Stories are cultural exchanges are made. We're drinking together, coming together to have these moments that incorporate wine. So in the symposiums, the vessels that were used were very important. So the biggest one is called a And this was the one where they would begin the ritual by mixing pure wine with a little bit of water. And over time, as the Symposio went on and everyone became a little Mary, they mixed more and more water. There was less and less wine, less in the cracker. So by the end of the symposium, mostly all that was left was water and just a tiny bit of wine. I don't know. So now we're looking at sort of the decline of the the culture of manja Gretchen, which started with the rise of Rome. So as Rome rose, they initially imitated the Greek culture as sort of a supreme ideal culture, and they imitated it. But over time, where we started off with wine and poetry from the Greek heritage being very, very crucial to Roman culture over time that, reverence for all things Greek eroded. And as that started to erode, we lost a lot of, the biodiversity because Rome started to just cultivate primarily the grape varieties that were very vigorous. So we lost, a lot of grape varieties that had been there before. So as Rome rose, the Greek influence fell, there was a lot of genetic erosion because Rome wasn't keeping up all the cultivation of all the various varietals that the Greek influence had brought to us. 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. Identity. So the Romans, not only did they stop cultivating biodiversity, but they also then eventually changed all the names of the varietals from their Greek names into Latin names. They also moved the location of many vines from where they had been being grown during the mania Greta to other locations that were possibly more fertile or easier to cultivate there. And through this period of renaming and changing location. We lost yet more, material that would allow us to detect the corresponding Greek varietals to the, you know, existing modern day varietals through change of name and change of location as well. Verso, personal note, prima, in, in So we're looking at the triangle of climatization where the Greek varietals came in They had a common genetic background. They stayed in the south of Italy. They were in Sicily and Calabria a little bit in Pulia, but as the mania Gretcha went down and we moved into sort of Roman times more influence from etruscans moving farther north, grapes were moved. And the example, professor uses in Sanjuvezi, which originated in Italy and Calabria in the south, and eventually was moved up north. We know it originated in south because many of its direct descendants, which I'm sure you've all been studying really hard, are in Sicily and Calabria, but SanjayVese found its best climate, its best location, to make its best wines in Tuscany. So we're looking at how grapes that originally came from the mania Gretchen came from the Greek, the influence of the Romans and the etruscans by moving these grapes to different places eventually changed where these grapes found their primary location. So, again, looking with the example of San Giovanni, on the right hand side, you see the direct descendants, the the children of San Giovanni, primarily all located in the south in Sicily or Puia. There are a few more Alino, Venacha, morelone, that are in Tuscany. We're looking at how San Juuvasi originated in this mania Gretcha wave. From the Greek influence in the south, even though now its most important location is in the north in Tuscany. In the, you know, So these eight grapes were all from Aetna. They're not cultivated anymore. They don't make wine anymore. But they're all direct children of San Giovanni all found in Aetna. So another example of of the same process, Garganaga moved north and became the parent grape of many famous grapes, Cartarato, in in Sicily, which is still there all the way up through Treviano to Martina Bianco, And now Garganaga has found its primary location where it grows the best and and does the best, in Veneto. It's the primary grape for Swaddlers. We are seeing again this movement from the mania Garetta Graves, throughout all of Italy. So we see how these parented other grapes that are still in the south, sangabazis in Tuscany, and Garganaga is in Vento. So they've found their home in the north, but they've left lots of children in the south as they moved. Total Italian. To the rest of the policy. We have even Okay. I so much. So we're looking at the end of the manja Greta period here, manja Greta influences died out as soon as the Romans were powerful enough to take over the entire Italian Peninsula. And as they did that, they eliminated all the people who were against them. So they eliminated all the Greeks. They eliminated all the Greek tradition. They brought in the more northern, more Roman style methods of Viticulture and training. This is where we get the Tenachia system and the Paragola system. These were northern things. These are more etruscan influenced, not Greek influence as soldiers moved across the Roman Empire they didn't take the Greek ways with them. They took the Roman ways with them. So as they moved up into France and and further out expanding the Roman Empire, they took Roman methods and Roman varietals with them. So the only way that we were able to keep any Greek influence at all was thanks to the fact that Romans took an enormous number of Greek slaves. And all of these Greek slaves were put to work in the vineyards doing the Viticulture. So that is the last very delicate thread of Greek influence left is by the slaves that the Romans kept in the empire. So the etruscans were helpful also in keeping the Greek influence alive after the Romans had pretty much wiped it out. They admired the Greeks. They had traded with them for years. They admired the fact that they had moved from bronze, from iron and bronze back and forwards in their art and in their drink vessels and shipping vessels. And it was during this time when the etruscans still had this admiration for the Greek influence that San Giovanni really arrived on the scene as a very important grape. Because the etruscans were still using the Greek methods of cultivating and ventifying this grape. Than a past due north of Italy. So the what became the crew wines for the imperial Roman Empire, which you can see sort of really in the central part of Italy in this slide, so Latvia Campagne were the original Greek varietals. So they were making wines in this area. So the Romans didn't replant them with things that were being grown farther nor are the etruscans. They kept the original Greek varietals and then change the styles. That in. Professor is saying, we need to have a new understanding and a new meaning for the word autochtenous when we're referring to autochtenous grape varietals. In the original Greek, this word means a vine or a grape of this place. And what we know now in Italy, what we consider autochtenous vines, they aren't from here. They came from Greece, but now this is a grape that is grown in this place. So we're looking at the difference between born in this place or grown in this place. And what I talked in this is coming to mean for us is this is the place where the grape has found its best home of quality. So San Giovanni, we consider it autochtenous to Tuscany. It's not born in Tuscany, but it has grown to its best level of quality in Tuscany. So we're looking at a different interpretation of the word autochtenous for grape varietals now. The question. The questions. Alright. Professor, I just wanted to end with the the positive aspects of the Greek culture that remain with us to this day. You saw the list. And even for those of you who can't speak Italian, you feel Professor's passion for, all of the things listed on that list. And in the final slide, it's a it's a fresco from Pyestum in Compania. Where what we're looking at is man's desire for the infinite. We can't exactly decode this fresco, but there's wine there. There's an element of heaven. This is what Professor wants us to remember that this Greek influence that brings all of us together to make wine to grow grapes is one of the most important things that they gave us. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcast. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italianline podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, and publication costs. Until next time.