Lhe systematic excavation of the ground before the start of major construction sites (motorways, business parks, railway lines) never ceases to deliver discoveries on Gaul, in particular on ancient wine. Supported by methodological and scientific progress, archaeobotany leads the investigation, as a detective of a history written until then by the victors. She inspects down to the smallest grain, calcined or found waterlogged, anaerobic, at the bottom of a well. Through excavations that are certainly random, but incessant, the world of wine draws from it expanded knowledge. The beginnings of viticulture are sketched. Its extension among the Celtic peoples, its grape varieties are becoming clearer. Another history of civilizations – the term societies is preferred today – is taking shape before our eyes, shaking up a certain national narrative.
To make the smallest vine residues speak (pollen, roots, charcoal, grapes) all means are good for the archaeobotanist. Carpology, anthracology, palynology determine whether the grapes were simply consumed or pressed, therefore vinified. New leap forward, morphometry, which analyzes the contours of the grape, and paleogenomics, which scrutinizes the ancient DNA preserved in the seeds, distinguish wild and cultivated vines. Even more, they approach ancient varieties. The precocity of viticulture in southern Gaul, the modalities of its extension after the Roman conquest are among the major revelations of these combined disciplines in recent decades.
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An early dating in southern Gaul
What if viticulture had started before the arrival of the Greeks and Romans? Researchers have found the presence of vines cultivated very early in Europe, from 1400 BC, in northern Italy and Sardinia. “The idea that the cultivated vine was introduced in the West during Greek colonization is therefore now outdated”, explained Matthieu Poux in 2019. Clues, to be digged, suggest that vines were installed from that time in France. For the moment, the oldest wine production remains that of Saint-Jean-du Désert in Marseille, a colony settled by the Phocaeans in the VIand century before our era. Its wine, renowned, shines, bringing under its influence an early local viticulture. The entire Mediterranean coast of Gaul converted to the art of making wine testifies to this, through grape seeds and pressing residues on the Etang de Berre, in Nîmes and on the site of Lattes (Hérault) between the Vand and the IIIand century before our era. And even inland, far from communication routes, recent excavations attest to a production from – 500 to – 450 in Ardèche, especially in Alba-la-Romaine.
From IIand century before our era, the Romans flooded the south of France with wine, a century before the conquest that founded the province of Narbonne. The winners install a viticulture of return, quickly standardized. In view of its success, the commercial currents are reversed: from an importer, the region becomes an exporter to Rome. Estates, villas and their pottery workshops are flourishing. The Gallic amphora embodies this golden age, where wine flows freely from the Ier at IIIand century. Recent archaeological research sheds light on the extent of this ancient viticulture. Alongside the large estates of the Languedoc plain, preventive excavations have revealed, in Biterrois and the Hérault valley, very small establishments, groups of wine-growing hamlets, real centers of production inland. A Gallo-Roman reputation is slowly emerging, which Latin authors pretend not to know. “The reputation of Béziers wine does not extend beyond the Gauls”, asserts Pliny the Elder, when it is found in cargoes stranded in Fos-sur-Mer, or in the warehouses of Rome. La Narbonnaise floods the Mediterranean world with its wines and, far beyond, the Persian Gulf and southern India. Its capital, Narbo Martius (Narbonne), the second port of the Western Roman Empire after Ostia, preserves a unique underground labyrinth serving as a wine cellar for a horreum (warehouse). In Lattes, a tavern or inn, probably the oldest in France (Ier s. before our era), recounts the rallying of the Gauls to Latin ways of life. In 2021, a section of the via Domitia, the major communication axis between Rome and Spain, reappears near Sète. A triple traffic lane, 18 meters wide, testifies by its scale to Roman civil engineering, but also to the intensity of trade in Narbonnaise.
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Extension of culture to the whole of Transalpine Gaul
Outside the Roman province, the great appetite of the Celts for wines can also be measured in Bibracte, stronghold of the Aedui in the Morvan from the 2ndand century before our era. There are more than a million amphorae there! The current contributions measure this consumption in the light of an element of prestige for the Celtic princes, like the crater of Vix (Côte-d’Or), then of a political use during immense banquets. From consumers, the Celtic peoples became winegrowers with the conquest of Gaul by Caesar (52 BC). While we only had parcel data, vineyards are materializing everywhere thanks to preventive excavations. The discoveries of villae in the Lyon region (Saint-Laurent-d’Agny), in Auvergne (Martres-d’Artière), in Berry, the Pays de la Loire (Piriac-sur-Mer) or in Île-de- France reveal a new part of this story. The excavations related to the construction of TGV lines provide information on ancient viticulture in the north-east of France, which was ignored, including in Champagne!
A team of researchers in evolutionary biology studied a series of 572 seeds there during excavations in Reims and Troyes. The importance of the vine in Gallo-Roman Alsace can be measured in the region of Saverne. At the borders of the Empire, wine from the Moselle and Rhine valleys, from Brittany and Normandy supplied the stationed troops. The rivers play a considerable role in the extension of vineyards. They settled near the Rhône-Saône axis, a veritable wine highway to Rome from the Ier at IIIand century. The trade on the Loire installs a viticulture on its banks, in particular in Touraine. Vineyards, buildings linked to wine production are listed there from the Ier century (Veigné in 2020). On the outskirts of Bourges, villae and grape seeds at the end of the Ier century finally attest to a viticulture of Bituriges Cubes, never mentioned in ancient texts. A geography of the Celtic peoples, included in the terminology of “Gauls”, is emerging, with their know-how.
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Know-how for a cultural challenge
Far from the mild Mediterranean, how to adapt to more difficult production conditions? Ancient texts and recent discoveries complement each other to demonstrate the ability of the Gallo-Romans to take up this cultural challenge by making the vine resist the cold, by orienting it against the wind, by creating grape varieties. On the left bank of the Rhône, the Allobroges produce a renowned wine in Rome. Further north, among the Aedui, traces of the first ancient Burgundy vineyards have been revealed at Gevrey-Chambertin (end of the 1ster-IIIand century). It is a humid plain vineyard, just like that of Bruyères-sur-Oise (Val-d’Oise), established from the IIand at IVand centuries in a depression. The Gallo-Romans demonstrated their ability to adapt there. Here a network of drainage ditches has been installed to control the humidity of the premises. There, near Bourges, a high planting density is observed, as recommended by ancient agronomists for vineyards in humid regions. The barrel, whose origin would be attributable to the Celts, appeared in the Roman world from the Ier century before our era. It is then widely distributed, as well as grape varieties whose archaeobotany finds traces.
*Historian, researcher graduated from Jean-Jaurès University in Toulouse, winegrower today near Montpellier, Florence Monferran has been committed for ten years to highlighting high quality heritages and terroirs, wines and Languedoc grape varieties. In 2020, she published the book “Le Breuvage d’Héraclès” with Privat editions.
Next episode: And the Gallo-Roman wine springs into the light