The original Byzantines, inhabitants of the colony of Byzantion, founded by Greek settlers from Megara, are considered to be the foremost oenophiles and inebriates of the ancient world. They loved wine so much that they actually lived in the taverns and let out their homes (together with their wives) to merchants and foreigners passing through the city. Men of business to the core, they were the opposite of warlike. It was said they could not bear the sound of the war trumpet, even in their dreams, as their ears were accustomed to the sound of flutes at drinking parties. On one occasion, when they were at war, their general, Leonides, ordered the wine dealers to set up tents on the city walls; only then did they stop abandoning their posts to go off drinking.

Reflective of such accounts, the proverb that “Byzantium conquers all with its wine” was handed down – as a nod to wine appreciation – to the successor city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire (323-1453). The Byzantines saw their empire as a vineyard and the rulers as grapevines, but also as kraters of wisdom in which the new krasis was created, the new mix that would eventually give a new name to wine, krasin. The vine and wine, Dionysian symbols of culture, sybaritic indulgence and authority were mixed with the biblical concept of power and the spread of the chosen people of Israel (seen as a grapevine) to the ends of the earth, as well as with that of Christ as the true vine and of his disciples as branches, who went forth to change the world with the word of God. Such symbols were adopted and used in the ecumenical vision and imperial ideology of Byzantium. The expansion of the empire and intermarriage with foreign princesses also found apt symbolism in the transplanting of vines and in their offshoots.

In medieval times, both Constantinople and the empire itself were viewed as a place where wine flowed freely. Northern Europeans gave Constantinople the nickname Winbourg, the City of Wine. And they had good reason to do so. To both the Muslim world, where wine was generally forbidden, and to the peoples of northern Europe, the Christian empire was the preeminent land for the growing of vines and the production and consumption of wine. Between the 5th and 7th centuries, the trade or distribution of wine from Byzantium, to satisfy the needs of the army and local inhabitants alike, had spread to Numidia, Nubia, Ethiopia, the Caucasus, the Crimean hinterland, Ireland and England. The same pattern appeared later (10th-12th centuries) among the newly converted Christians along the Volga and as far as Novgorod and Scandinavia. The Slavs, Varangians and Anglo-Saxons in particular, but also the steppe peoples subsquent to their Christianization, saw Byzantium as a country full of vineyards, a place where they could purchase wine and oil. Indeed, the conversion to Christianity of Bulgarians, Serbs, Russians, Caucasians and many others by Byzantine missionaries inevitably brought them into closer contact with wine on account of the Eucharist – one more important Byzantine contribution to the dissemination of wine culture. Thus, in any center of Christian worship, a vine would necessarily be planted to provide wine for Holy Communion.

Celebrated Byzantine Wines

A number of Byzantine provinces were renowned for their sweet, aromatic wines: Bithynia, in particular. Sweet wines made from different varieties were reputed to be produced there, while physicians referred to their medicinal properties. Many celebrated wines were also produced in the early Byzantine period in Syria and Palestine, in reconquered Carthage, in Egypt, on the Aegean islands, in the Peloponnese and in Italy. One account describes a scene during the reign of Justin II (565-574) in which the emperor and his wife, Sophia, look out at the ships in the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara (historically Propontis) transporting wine to Constantinople from Gaza, Egypt, Italy, the Peloponnese, Mytilene, Chios and Rhodes.

In the years that followed the reigns of Justinian I (527-565) and Justin II – with Avaro-Slavic invasions that lead to the destruction of vine crops in the Balkans and Greece, as well as Arab incursions that resulted in the loss of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and in a disruption of Mediteranean trade – Bithynia became the main supplier of wines to the Byzantine capital. Besides the prevalent inexpensive, sour, watery wines, reeking of resin, originating from Philippopolis to Attica, there were also “precious,” delicate, sweet and fragrant wines from Bithynia, fine wine from Nicaea and flowery Anthosmias from Cyzicus. These were old wines from the imperial estates, made from sun-dried grapes. This type of imperial Bithynian wine is thought to be associated with a new wine known as Malmsey, or Malvasia (as it was known in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, after Monemvasia).  First mentioned in 1214, it was reportedly offered to and consumed by the Latin conquerors in front of Hagia Sophia, along with wines from Chios and Lesbos. Monemvasian-type wines from the Peloponnese, Crete and the Aegean islands now came to prevail also in Constantinople at the center of trade rivalry.