wein.plus
Attention
You are using an old browser that may not function as expected.
For a better, safer browsing experience, please upgrade your browser.

Log in Become a Member

Literature

literature (GB)
letteratura (I)
literatura (ES)
littérature (F)
literatuur (N)
literatura (PO)

The literature on the subject of wine and viticulture is at least as varied and extensive as the wines of this world. Even in the Old Testament of the Bible, but also in older works, wine is a central theme and is often mentioned. Viticulture and wine culture at a professional level already existed at least 6,000 to perhaps even 8,000 years ago in antiquity. The origin of cultivated vines and viticulture lies in Mesopotamia, in Transcaucasia(Georgia) or, according to the latest findings, in south-east Anatolia in Turkey. Wine was already being written about at this time, but this cannot yet be described as wine literature. The first witness to Greek wine culture is Homer, who in his works Iliad and Odyssey around 730 BC wrote poetically about viticulture and wine enjoyment.

Literatur - Schreibfeder und antike Bücher

Ancient Greece

Many other ancient authors wrote about the subject from an agricultural or historical perspective. These included Hesiod (~750-680 BC), Anacreon (~580-495 BC), Socrates (470-399 BC), Xenophon (430-354 BC), Aristophanes (450-380 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Strabo (63 BC-28 AD). The physicians Hippocrates (460-377 BC) and Galen (129-216 BC) focussed intensively on the health aspect of wine consumption. The Carthaginian Mago, who came from a completely different cultural background and lived around 400 BC, wrote extensively about the wine-growing practices of the Phoenicians. Although his works have not survived, he is often quoted by later authors, especially Roman ones.

Ancient Rome

Technical literature in Roman antiquity reached its first peak in the 1st century AD with numerous publications on agriculture and viticulture. However, very little of this has been preserved and only fragments in the form of copies or reprints remain. Some Roman authors can already be described as specialised authors, the most important of which are probably Cato the Elder (234-149 BC), Varro (116-27 BC), Virgil (70-19 BC), Columella (1st century), Pliny the Elder (23-79) and Palladius (4th century). The poets Horace (65-8 BC), Ovid (43 BC to 8 AD) and Seneca (1-65) also paid homage to wine in the form of poetry, essays, poems or satire. The well-known work Satyricon contains revealing information about the eating and drinking culture of the Roman upper class in the 1st century AD.

High Middle Ages

After the fall of the Roman Empire and the subsequent turmoil of the Migration Period, there was also a decline in viticulture and thus also in the literature about it. It was not until the High Middle Ages, beginning around 900 AD, that viticulture and related literature regained importance thanks to the achievements of the Benedictine and later Cistercian monastic orders. The agricultural anthology Geoponika, written in the 10th century, refers back to some of the ancient Greek and Roman wine authors mentioned above. The most famous wine authors from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the modern era include Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Petrus de Crescentiis (1230-1320), Arnaldus de Villanova (1240-1311) and Johann Rasch (1540-1612) with his "Weinbuch: Von Baw, Pfleg und Brauch des Weins".

Modern times

From the beginning of the 17th century, many authors dealt with the subject in a scientific quality. The natural scientist Philipp Jakob Sachs von Löwenheim (1627-1672) founded the oldest medical and scientific journal in the world in Breslau in 1670. In his treatise on the vine, he coined the term ampelography. The theoretical considerations on viticulture and winemaking by Balthasar Sprenger (1724-1791) were already scientifically founded and backed up by practical experiments. His three-volume viticulture book with 2,300 pages of viticulture techniques and characterisation of grape varieties, in which he also discusses ancient authors, is considered a standard work.

Diversification of wine literature

From this time onwards, wine literature began to diversify to an increasing extent. For the first time, in addition to the classic topics of vineyard care, grape variety knowledge and winemaking and cellar techniques, special topics such as the tasting and qualitative assessment of wines (wine evaluation) with corresponding vocabulary (wine address) or "Which wine goes with which food" as well as publications on wine-growing regions and their wines (wine guides) were covered. The writing guild of wine critics also emerged in this context and became increasingly important.

Authors

Many famous personalities have made statements about wine, countless examples of which are listed under the heading of quotations. Biographies also frequently refer to the drinking culture or drinking habits of prominent people and mention their alcoholic preferences or favourite wines. In the following list, around 200 authors, journalists, publicists and wine critics from antiquity to modern times are listed in alphabetical order. They have either published noteworthy treatises on the subject of wine and viticulture in some form or have "simply" made a significant statement about wine - such as the first-named Alcaeus with "In vino veritas". The list is also a "Who's Who" of wine literature. Some of them are members of Weinfeder e.V., an association of German-speaking wine writers:

Alkaeus to Ausonius

August Wilhelm Babo to James Busby

Tom Cannavan to William Vere Cruess

Giovanni Dalmasso to Patrick Dussert-Gerber

Dagmar Ehrlich to Len Evans

Wolfgang Faßbender to Gustave-Louis-Emile Foëx

René Gabriel to Jules Guyot

James Halliday to Bernhard Husfeld

Hermann Jaeger to André Jullien

Odette Kahn to Walter Kutscher

Monica Larner to Carl von Linné

Egon Mark to Thomas Volnay Munson

Alexandre Pierre Odart to Ovid

  • Alexandre Pierre Odart - France
  • Jeremy Oliver - Australia
  • Harold P. Olmo - USA
  • Ovid - Ancient Rome

Palladius to Victor Pulliat

Johann Rasch to Giuseppe di Rovasenda

Philipp Jakob Sachs from Löwenheim to André Simon

Simon de Rojas Clemente y Rubio to Serena Sutcliffe

Tacitus to Franz Xaver Trummer

Giuseppe Vaccarini to José F. Vouillamoz

Philip Wagner to Heinz-Gert Woschek

Franco Ziliani to Friedrich Zweigel

The documentation "Personalities of Wine Culture - Short Biographies from 16 Centuries" (Schriften zur Weingeschichte No. 140, Wiesbaden 2002) by Paul Claus and co-workers was used as a valuable and productive source for the biographies of numerous personalities contained in Wine lexicon with the kind permission of the Gesellschaft für Geschichte des Weines e.V. (Society for the History of Wine ). The bibliography on the history and culture of wine with around 30,000 recorded works on wine is available free of charge on the website. See also under winegrowing personalities and wine critics.

viele Weinbücher = Umfang des Weinglossars
The Lexicon comprises around 6,000 A4 pages, including pictures and graphics, which is roughly the size and content of these wine books. These were also used as a source (see Wine lexicon).

quill pen: by Bruno/Germany on Pixabay
antique books: by Gerhard G. on Pixabay
Wine books: by Norbert F. J. Tischelmayer

Voices of our members

Dr. Christa Hanten

For my many years of work as an editor with a wine and culinary focus, I always like to inform myself about special questions at Wine lexicon. Spontaneous reading and following links often leads to exciting discoveries in the wide world of wine.

Dr. Christa Hanten
Fachjournalistin, Lektorin und Verkosterin, Wien

The world's largest Lexicon of wine terms.

26,367 Keywords · 46,924 Synonyms · 5,323 Translations · 31,701 Pronunciations · 201,864 Cross-references
made with by our author Norbert F. J. Tischelmayer. About the Lexicon

EVENTS NEAR YOU