Rome Brings Wine North

Wine as Part of Provisions

A Roman soldier received wine as a fixed part of his pay and daily rations, usually diluted heavily with water. On campaigns far to the north, however, this supply chain became a problem: transporting barrels and amphorae from Italy, Spain, or Gaul across the Alps or the Rhine was slow and expensive. Every additional mile of transport unnecessarily drove up the price of what was, at heart, a simple drink.

Out of this practical problem grew a consequential idea. Why not grow vines directly along the border rivers, right where the troops were stationed anyway? The earliest evidence of vine cultivation near Roman garrisons consists of curved pruning knives from the first century AD, found near military camps. The supply logistics of an army thus unintentionally laid the foundation for two of Germany's most famous wine regions.

Roman agricultural writers like Columella wrote veritable handbooks on viticulture in the first century, with instructions on pruning, staking, and harvest timing. Such knowledge traveled with the legions. It was passed on locally to native settlers, who had often previously known only grain farming or livestock. From Rome's perspective, this wasn't a cultural gift, but plain necessity, since a province that could feed itself cost the empire less.

Trier, the Moselle, and the First Terraces

The city of Trier, founded by the Romans in 16 BC, developed into an important stronghold along the Moselle. In its surrounding countryside, the first vineyards likely emerged as early as the second century. Viticulture in the region flourished visibly through the fourth century. The slopes of the Moselle are steep, but that very steepness made them appealing. Terracing the vines captured extra warmth from the reflective water surface and the slate soil.

This technique, planting vines in terraces along steep riverbanks to make optimal use of warmth and light, essentially dates back to this Roman period. Winemakers along the Moselle still build on the same principles today, just with more modern tools than their predecessors had roughly eighteen hundred years ago.

From Frontier Zone to Wine Region

What began as a military stopgap gradually became an economy in its own right. Civilian settlers took over the vineyards from the soldiers, improved cultivation methods, and adapted Italian grape varieties to the noticeably cooler climate along the Rhine. Over generations, these adapted vines gave rise to precursors of the varieties that grow along the Rhine and Moselle today, including early forms of what would later become Riesling.

The Romans even borrowed another innovation from the Celts themselves: the wooden barrel. Before that, they had transported wine almost exclusively in clay amphorae, heavy and fragile. The oak barrel, sturdier and easier to roll, quickly caught on in the provinces north of the Alps and shapes wine storage to this day. Alongside aqueducts, roads, and Roman law, the Empire thus left behind a plant and a vessel in its northern provinces too. Both endured long after Rome itself had crumbled.

What Remained When Rome Fell

In the fifth century, Roman administration collapsed in the West, and with it many of the structures that had organized winemaking. Roads fell into disrepair, markets shrank, entire regions grew poorer. The vines themselves, however, did not simply vanish overnight. They kept growing on slopes suited for little else, tended by local farmers on a smaller scale than before.

It was above all ecclesiastical institutions that kept winemaking alive during this turbulent period and even expanded it. They endured even as secular power collapsed. The next stop on this journey picks up exactly with this group.