The Last of the (Roman) Summer Wine
Keith Nurse investigates new archaeological findings linking wine producing to Roman England.
New findings which have established that a wine- producing industry flourished in south-east England during the early Roman period are likely to come as a surprise to international experts in London this month for a conference at the Museum of London on Roman amphorae.
The discoveries mean that locally-produced wine (arguably the bench-mark test of the Mediterranean good-life) was available and marketed on a sizeable commercial scale in the remote, cool and damp island province.
It has long been assumed, on the basis of plant and grape-pip remains, that local wines of a sort were produced in Roman Britain. But it was generally considered to have been a small-scale, 'kitchen' garden activity, largely confined to certain villas in the south and south-west. However, research of pottery finds by the Museum of London Archaeology Service now points strongly to the existence of a substantial, yet short-lived (for reasons apparently unconnected with the vagaries of the British climate) French or Gaulish-style wine trade carried out by immigrant craftsmen and merchants from about AD 70 to AD 100.
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