Literature of Wine: Early works and agriculture

Many early works are richer in references to the effects of drinking wine (see drunkenness) than to the wine itself. classical texts constitute the earliest known literature of wine (although see also Ancient mesopotamia). While Mago of carthage clearly inspired many subsequent writers, his text does not survive and the first known classical writers to concentrate on wine and winemaking were probably cato (234–149 bc) and varro (116–27 bc). Cato, particularly, was keen on the profit motive in winemaking and his instructions appear mainly to have been aimed at quantity rather than quality, even suggesting, at one point, how Coan wine (from Kós, one of the aegean islands) could be faked from Italian grapes.