The Roman Empire made wine a part of every day culture. It became a very important business and a part of agriculture. They were the first to develop viticultural techniques and knowledge of which grapes grew best in which climates. The Italians were also the first to use barrels for storage and also bottles. They even had a God of wine – Bacchus – who had morphed from a Greek God. Poets and scholars wrote about wine – everyone loved it!
After the fall of the Roman Empire wine was upheld in the religious circles as an integral part of ceremony – particularly in the Catholic Church. France became the leader of the world wine trade for many years. Tuscany (or Toscana as it was known) emerged as the heart of Italy’s wine culture in the 17th and 18th Centuries while the rest of Italy – which was divided into independent provinces – still suffered from poverty after years of war.
In the mid-19th Century the Italian wine trade began to pick up again but suffered from criticism for many years because of a lack of quality – this was still a problem even in the 20th Century when, after World War II poverty necessitated the production of jug wines just to make money. As with the many other countries though, Italy followed Frances lead and implemented it’s own set of rules and regulations for winemaking in the form of the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) Law in 1963, effective 1966. However, the system was not hierarchical like the AOC Law it simply ensured that wines were typical of particular regions – not necessarily of good quality. Again Italy was subject to criticism.
