ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the vocabulary of wine consumers and producers, and examines the characteristics of Greek wines, which bear little relation to wines consumed today, in order to appreciate more fully the range of semantic markers adopted by the ancients. The great wines, appreciated notably during aristocratic banquets, were mellow and obtained through natural concentration. Galen appears to be a reliable guide for analysing Greek wine-tasting methods and for anticipating the remarkable continuity in Greek approaches to flavour. The wines distinguished themselves firstly by their colour, secondly by their flavour, thirdly by their consistency, fourthly by their smell, fifthly by their strength. From the play of light, to the colour and consistency of wine, sight provides the first sensory experience of wine. Galen attached great importance to sight, and distinguished five colours of wine, which he classified, from the most to the least warming: yellow, orange-tawny or amber, red, sweet or black and white.
