Alicia Steffann

Along the way, they also innovated, learning to age and transport their wine in barrels rather than clay containers and replacing ceramic amphoras with glass bottles.

As a testament to the potential hardiness of such a bottle, a glass urn was unearthed in Carmona, Spain in 2019 that is thought to still contain liquid wine.

Eventually, of course, the Roman Empire declined and with it, the golden age of wine it had enjoyed.

However, even as the Romans made their exit, the Catholic Church continued making wine for its own use.

Indeed, as Lukacs points out in his book, it does seem that the clerical enthusiasm for wine went beyond producing just what was needed for religious purposes.

According to his research, clerics of the time expanded and developed winemaking, bringing it to areas of Europe that had not previously been making much wine.

This resulted in the expansion of winemaking to places like Northern France, Germany, and even England.

Vineyards also expanded to Eastern Europe and to the South in North Africa and Palestine.

Wine became an important part of secular culture, spreading wherever Christianity went.

By the late 8th century, Lukács quotes historian Pierre Richet as saying that the period was one obsessed with wine.

But once again, it's important to point out that wine still tasted pretty bad.

The advent of barrels had certainly added new dimensions to winemaking, thanks to their exposure to oxygen, as well as the complex interaction between the barrel and the wines.

However, these containers also came with some disadvantages.

Oxygen exposure was a double-edged sword.

Even if it was fine when it was placed in its barrel, a wine would have spoiled more quickly than it did in an urn tasting sour upon delivery.

Furthermore, whereas clay amphoras had provided a good seal from other exterior elements, the barrels did not.

In other words, it wasn't just oxygen that got inside.

Because of that, they were not sterile, reducing their shelf life.

Wine would have been consumed as quickly as possible, which was not optimal for taste.

Within Europe, widespread consumption of wine was most common in the southern countries, where grapes were plentiful.