Did Cretan Winemakers Scam Their Roman Customers?

DUBLIN, IRELAND—A recent investigation by University College Dublin archaeologist Conor Trainor posits that ceramic beehives found at the site of Knossos may be evidence that merchants on the island of Crete sold counterfeit products to their Roman clientele, The Conversation reports. Crete specialized in the production of a particular raisin wine sometimes known as passum. Drying out grapes before fermentation and making wine from raisins produces a sweeter vintage that was popular across the ancient Mediterranean world, especially with the Romans. However, this process requires time and patience, two things that Roman consumers may not have had. Trainor believes that there may have been a duplicitous reason behind the presence of beehives found at a wine-producing site in Knossos. To keep up with demand, winemakers may have been mixing honey with their wine to artificially sweeten it, a much swifter and less expensive option than having to wait months for grapes to dry out. Given the large volume of empty Cretan wine amphoras found in Rome, however, this did not seem to spoil the city’s thirst for the island specialty. To read about more archaeological finds on the island, go to "Cretan Antiquing."