According to Patrick McGovern,
author of Ancient Wine, wine has been traded internationally at least
since the fourth millennium BC. (See page 44.) Centuries earlier
many additives were used to flavor wine for a number of reasons: to impart
medicinal properties sometimes, for example, but largely to prevent or mask
spoilage. Resin, myrrh, and honey were among a host of ingredients for
this purpose.
As sure as there is trade, there
is fraud. I have found a couple of punishments (London
Lancet, 1868) meted out by medieval English magistrates. "In
1364 a seller of unsound wine was punished by being made to drink
it." And: "An important proclamation against the adulteration
and mixing of wines was issued by Henry the Fifth in 1419, and the punishment
of the pillory was ordered for all who sold false wines."
Count
Visone's wines are, no doubt, drinkable if not delicious once you get
past the heavy doses of oak and overextraction, but "mixed" they are.
Let's say he's been found guilty of fraud by a German magistrate, who levies a big fine and prevents him from selling his wines in Germany for a period of time. And let's say Italian authorities have agreed to place the Count and fellow miscreants in the pillory all at once for some well-deserved public humiliation. I wonder how this might play out...
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