Sweet passum: Cretan wine from sun-dried grapes
«As the few surviving written sources and chiefly archaeological artifacts show, wine was an important product in Crete in antiquity and the fifth century BC, but no evidence survives that it was traded by sea. Domestic consumption was significant between the fourth and third centuries BC, but there is no evidence of trade outside Crete in the early Hellenistic period. Egyptian papyruses that provide so much information about wines from other areas are silent on this matter. «The first evidence of export trade – the sealed handles from Ierapytna – are from the end of the third or second centuries BC. These are rare, and, so far, have only been found in Alexandria. This was the time when Cretan wine started to become known outside the island by the features that would characterize it in centuries to follow. But it was not yet time for the commercial expansion which would take place during the imperial period, when Cretan wine thrived commercially.» The above excerpt come from the doctoral dissertation «The Wine and Amphoras of Crete,» defended in France by archaeologist Antigone Managou-Lerat, a Cypriot by birth who teaches at the University of Rennes. We are indebted to her for her study of the sources concerning the viticulture and wine production of Crete in historic times, her investigation into the classification of types of Cretan amphoras in Roman times, and the interesting conclusions she has drawn from the location of the amphoras about Cretan wine trade in Roman times, especially the imperial era. The first written Greek evidence of passum wine comes from the the historian Polybius in the second century BC: «Since the Romans forbid women to drink wine, they drink what is called passum. It is made from raisins and is similar to sweet wine from Aigosthenia and Crete. They drink that when they are thirsty. It is impossible for a woman to avoid being noticed drinking wine, since, first of all, they are not allowed in the wine cellar. And a woman must embrace her relatives, her husband and even her cousins’ children the first time she sees them each day. And since she cannot know when she will meet them, women must be cautious, because, if they even taste wine, no other accusation is needed.» (History, VI.11a, 4) This extract provides some very interesting details. First, it tells us that Roman passum was made from raisins, which is confirmed by the recipes of Magon described in earlier articles. And we learn that a simple kiss would betray the fact that a Roman woman had been drinking wine, because of the odor of alcohol. So the passum which Roman women were allowed to drink did not contain alcohol. It was a very sweet grape juice which was not fermented – a drink which took the place of wine but was actually must. This confirms that passum was a vinum-mustum. The next piece of information concerns Cretan wine. If you were to ask me what the Spanish wine marketed as Cava resembles, I would try to explain by saying that it is made by the same method used to make champagne and has similar features. And if I wanted to explain the characteristics of a frontignan, I’d say it was made the same way as Samiote moschato, which has similar organoleptic features. In other words, I would choose the most representative and best known wines of that type. Polybius did likewise. Wanting to give his Greek readers an idea of what the Romans called passum, he said it was «similar to drinking» sweet wine from Aigosthenia or Crete. This means that both these wines were well known in the Greek world at least by the second century BC, because nobody would introduce an unknown product by comparing it with a similar, equally unknown, one. At first, however, it seems that Cretan wine was unknown, because there is no evidence of export trade. Let’s examine this apparent contradiction. Not traded It is no surprise that Polybius from Megalopolis (204-182 BC) knew passum wine, because he lived in Rome for 17 years, and traveled many times around North Africa, which was famous for its passum wines, according to Pliny the Elder (H.N.XIV.81). But where did he get to know Cretan wine, or who described it to him? At that time, Crete was a free state. Agriculture played an important part in its economy, which was based on mercenary soldiering and piracy. Cretan archers were part of Alexander’s campaign against the Persians in 334 BC and in the battle of Gaugamela. Later, Demetrios used Cretan archers in the siege of Rhodes; and archers in all epochs used to set out with their flask or wineskin of wine. I think it is natural that Cretan archers would have contributed to making Cretan wine known long before the official wine export trade began. Up to the last decade of the third century BC, the most powerful state in the eastern Mediterranean was the Ptolemaic dynasty, which also employed a large number of Greek and Cretan mercenaries. The Ptolemies held Cyprus to the east, and Kili in Syria, with the ports of Phoenicia and Cyrenaica in the west, where Cretans had settled. It also had naval bases, two of which are of particular interest to us: One was the island of Thera and, the other, the eastern-most part of Crete. Each of these two settlements received supplies of local agricultural produce from those islands, and it was then that the hitherto unknown Thera wine, another very sweet wine made from sun-dried grapes, become known. The same thing occurred in Crete. Those Greek officers and men in the Ptolemaic camp, who could afford it, bought wine like the one they had tasted in other ports in the East, mainly Phoenicia, and North Africa, which had a long tradition of wines made from sun-dried grapes. And, throughout the ages, sailors have spread the fame of the wines they have drunk in various ports. The historian Polybius, who was a soldier and a mercenary, also traveled on military ships. After all, he was at the side of Scipio Aemilianus when the Romans besieged Carthage. So, it seems that Cretan wine was widely known during the Hellinistic period, even though there was no organized export trade shipping wine abroad in amphoras. Wineskins were used then, the way demijohns are now for homemade wine on islands that have never had bottled wine. Nobody talks about them, but people know them and value them. Afghan women
