Wine

One of the most popular Ancient Greek foods is wine. The Greeks are thought to have produced red, rosé, and white wines. As is the case now, the quality ranged from basic table wine to rare vintages. The best wines were typically thought to come from Thásos, Lesbos, and Chios.

Later, Cretan wine rose to prominence. Country folks developed a secondary wine from water and pomace (the leftover from squeezed grapes), blended with lees, for their personal consumption. The Greeks occasionally sweetened wine with honey and created therapeutic wines with thyme, pennyroyal, and other herbs. They were familiar with pine resin-flavored wine by the first century, if not before (modern retsina).

The wine was generally cut with water. Although akraton, or "unmixed wine," was known to be consumed by northern barbarians, it was supposed to cause insanity and death. The wine was blended in a krater, from which slaves poured an oinochoe into the drinker's kylix (jugs). The wine was also supposed to have healing properties. Aelian writes that wine from Heraia in Arcadia made men stupid but women fertile; on the other hand, Achaean wine was considered to induce abortion. Aside from these medicinal uses, Greek society frowned on women consuming wine. Aelian claims that a Massalian law outlawed this and barred women from drinking water. Sparta was the only city where women drank wine on a regular basis.

Wine's impact in ancient Greece aided trade with surrounding countries and regions. The wine was connected with several behavioral and cultural elements. It also caused a significant alteration in Ancient Greece. Through trade and colonialism, the ancient Greeks pioneered new methods of viticulture and wine production, which they shared with early winemaking settlements in what is now France, Italy, Austria, and Russia, among others. Along the way, they had a significant impact on the ancient European winemaking traditions of the Celts, Etruscans, Scythians, and, eventually, the Romans.