Medieval Literature

The only medieval successor to the Roman agricultural treatises is petrus de crescentiis’ Liber ruralium commodorum of c.1304; otherwise there are few medieval authors who wrote specifically on wine.

One of these is Henri d’Andely, whose Bataille des vins dates from just after 1223 and it belongs to the genre of the medieval debate poem. The king of France, Philip Augustus, wants to know which is the best wine: his preference is for whites. Some 70 wines are tasted and the crown of victory passes all the French wines by, for it goes to the wine of cyprus.