from Hacker News

Oldest white wine in the world found in a first-century tomb in Spain

by The_suffocated on 6/20/24, 6:58 AM with 56 comments

• by brabel on 6/20/24, 9:57 AM

  Amazing that the tomb has survived all this time, hidden from view, through the Roman Empire collapse, the arrival of the Vandals and then the Moors, the Reconquest, Middle Ages, the World Wars... and then someone doing house renovations just happens to stumble upon it.

• by joenot443 on 6/20/24, 11:58 AM

  > Therefore, the 2019 finding in a Roman mausoleum in Carmona, southern Spain, of an ash urn roughly 2000 years old, containing a reddish liquid, was rather exceptional and unexpected. An archaeochemical study of the liquid allowed it to be deemed the oldest ancient wine conserved in the liquid state.

  This is remarkable to me. What a find! Am I alone in being super, super surprised that it remained in liquid form this long? Does that suggest a very perfect seal on the urn?

• by reedf1 on 6/20/24, 8:46 AM

  Ah an 83, a wonderful vintage.

• by SillyUsername on 6/20/24, 8:55 AM

  Did anybody else expect this to be in a glass bottle? Maybe I've had one too many :D

• by perihelions on 6/20/24, 9:22 AM

  - "In fact, in his Natural Historia, Plinio (2010), Pliny distinguishes up to four types of wine based on their colour: albus (pale white), fulvus (reddish-yellow), sanguineus (blood red), and niger (black). The wine acquires these colours after the fermentation process and through its storage."

  Direct link if anyone was curious

  https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59131/pg59131-images.ht...

  - "THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT-TREES"

  - "The nature of the vine. Its mode of fructification | The nature of the grape, and the cultivation of the vine | Ninety-one varieties of the vine | Remarkable facts connected with the culture of the vine | The most ancient wines | The nature of wines | Fifty kinds of generous wines | Thirty-eight varieties of foreign wine | Seven kinds of salted wines | Eighteen varieties of sweet wine. Raisin-wine and hepsema | Three varieties of second-rate wine | At what period generous wines were first commonly made in Italy | The inspection of wine ordered by King Romulus | Wines drunk by the ancient Romans | Some remarkable facts connected with wine-lofts. The Opimian wine | At what period four kinds of wine were first served at table | The uses of the wild vine. What juices are naturally the coldest of all | Sixty-six varieties of artificial wine | Hydromeli, or melicraton | Oxymeli | Twelve kinds of wine with miraculous properties | What wines it is not lawful to use in the sacred rites | How must is usually prepared | Pitch and resin | Vinegar—lees of wine | Wine-vessels—wine-cellars | Drunkenness | Liquors with the strength of wine made from water and corn"

• by sligor on 6/20/24, 9:14 AM

  Not sure if it is geo-related but from western europe it redirects to elsevier.com + login

• by SwiftyBug on 6/20/24, 10:54 AM

  I would expect that after all this time the whole liquid content would have evaporated.

• by mandibeet on 6/20/24, 6:36 PM

  Unlikely that the wine would taste good by modern standards but still I wanna try it

• by zipzap0505 on 6/20/24, 8:57 AM

  Can we drink it?

• by mikemitchelldev on 6/20/24, 4:16 PM

  Interesting to know. I had only associated urns with ashes.

• by hulitu on 6/20/24, 10:56 AM

  Any somelier here ?

• by taco_emoji on 6/20/24, 5:56 PM

  Was it a cask of amontillado next to some bones?

• by anthk on 6/20/24, 9:06 AM

  That's vinegar, not wine.

• by colesantiago on 6/20/24, 10:22 AM

  I know a person who owns a vast wine collection who would be ecstatic in acquiring this one.