Resurrecting the Ancient Wines of Pompeii

What did the earliest Roman wines taste like? Were the highly appraised wines of the first century really worth their legendary status? Will we ever know?

List of suggested wines at bottom

Mastroberardino Vineyard in Pompeii

When Vesuvius blew in August of 79 AD, ash covered the entire area of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The thriving seaport towns, once bustling with activity, became graveyards of civilizations frozen in time. There it lay undisturbed for eighteen centuries until it was excavated by Giuseppe Fiorelli, director of excavations from 1860 to 1875. Under twelve feet of solid ash, he discovered the decayed bodies of thirteen men, women, and children huddled together next to a stone wall inside their garden, where they suffocated in the swirling volcanic air.

Orchard of the Fugitives

Today the garden has been named the Orchard of the Fugitives. But instead of death, it is filled with green grass, robust…