Flavoured Wines: History

Spices have traditionally been added to wine (as they have to food) to provide some variety in taste, or, more likely, to hide any imperfections of taste. A wine that tasted like vinegar would have been much improved by such additions.

The ancient cultures of the Mediterranean added spices, herbs, and honey (and also drugs or resins such as myrrh) to their grape and date wines. Descriptions and recipes abound in ancient texts from mesopotamia to Ancient rome. (See also Ancient egypt and Ancient greece.) The Greeks were reputed by the Romans almost never to drink their wines straight, and pliny lists virtually everything from pepper to absinthe as wine flavourings.