In search of the Caecubo

This is a tale of a very ancient wine the Caecubum (Latin name) or Cecubo (in Italian) which most experts thought to be extinct due the destruction on its specific vine variety. The Cecubo (in ancient Latin is Caecubum) produced from the Abbuoto vines was one of favourite red wines on the tables of the ancient Romans. Caecubum was highly appreciated since the ancient times. Over 2100 the Caecubum was already popular and largely narrated in historic documents. To many great characters of the time in the first century BC Caecubum was the best of all wines, smoother than Falernian wine fuller than Alban wine, highly-flavored, pungent and alcoholic. Among the many citations proving its popularity, Caecubum wine makes several appearances in the odes of the great ancient Roman writer, Horace. Horace never failed mentioning the Caecuban in relation to special occasions like Octavian victory over Antony and Cleopatra (Odes 1.37.5).

      Grape of Caecubum wine

In Ode 1.20, Horace gives Caecuban a greater prominence then Falernian (another famous, but still largely produced, ancient red wine) as he invites his notorious friend, Maecenas to drink with him:

“When, O happy Maecenas, shall I,
overjoyed at Caesar’s being victorious,
drink with you under the stately dome (for so it pleases Jove)
the Caecubum reserved for festal entertainments,
while the lyre plays a tune, accompanied with flutes,...”

In another occasion Horace wrote again to Maecenas:

“Caecubum et prelo domitam Caleno
tu bibes uvam; mea nec Falernae
temperant vites neque Formiani
pocula colles.”

(Then thou shall drink Caecuban and the juice of grapes crushed by Cales' presses; my cups are flavored neither with the product of Falernum's vines nor of the Formian hills. - Ode XX) The popularity of Caecuban seemed to have hit its zenith in Horace’s time. Its only production areas were the south of today’s Latium and the northern Campania territories. The popularity of the red, strong Caecubum was so high that a famous Roman writer Varro, called this territory as “agrum Caecubum” (the Caecubum countryside) Following the era of Augustus to power, a lighter wine, the Setinum was declared the official wine for the imperial banquets (according to Pliny) because it did not cause him indigestion. This and it rose in popularity accordingly. (Natural History XIV.61). Wine in all Horace’s works is not only a literary convention common in poetry in general but becomes rather the main element indicating that drinking wine helps to create an atmosphere of togetherness, which is passionately embedded and implied with the Italian culture and wines.

. Nevertheless, in spite of its great popularity and appreciation the Caecubum seem to have disappeared somehow from the history of wines and gone extinct like the Dodo. Apparently, in the beginning of the 1st century AD Pliny noted that the local Abbuoto vineyards started falling into neglect when the crazy Emperor Nero excavated resolutely the whole area, under the pretence of a planned ship canal across the land to reach the sea from the lake. In reality he ordered massive excavations in order to find the legendary treasure of Dido which was supposed to have been buried here. After that destruction of every cultivated field, most of Abbuoto vineyard extinguished completely and the Caecubum wine with them; but in Martial’s time (40-103 AD), if his words can be trusted, Caecubum wine was still produced in this area and was ageing in cellars at the enigmatic Amyclae. One of the last citations regarding enjoying the Caecubum was from Galen (2nd century AD), nearly a century after its large production ceased. But if Galeno was still enjoying the Ceacubum long after the wine disappeared from the table of Rome, that means that few precious vineyards might have survived maybe on the sunny hills few miles away and then kept only for the production (and the privilege) of the ‘annual’ family wine of few families of local peasants. So few vines must have escaped the catastrophic events and subsequently formed the raw material to which Caecubum was still produced for many other centuries by few families of small farmers. But where are they? Read the rest of the story in Ancient wine .