Phoenician Treasures?

The ancient seafaring people of the Phoenicians, familiar to many from Asterix and Obelix, left behind quite a few treasures on their voyages across the Mediterranean (at Aliseda, for instance, and El Carambolo). This article, too, is about a mysterious good they carried with them - one that may recently have been raised from the depths by Vassilios Tsaktsarlis. A fascinating story of an oenological treasure ...

I have already covered the background in the report on Ktima Biblia Chora, but now that we come to tasting the ancient wine Tsaktsarlis may have brought back to life, the prehistory deserves a brief recap.

The starting point for our excursion into history is what the winery itself writes on its website about the landscape chosen for its vineyards:

The Phoenicians, esteemed navigators and merchants, came to the Pangeon area in search of precious metals and first introduced a special grape variety known as 'Biblia". The same variety continued to be cultivated for centuries and the wine made from it was called "Bilinos Oenos '' (which means wine in ancient Greek). The whole area was named "Biblia Chora" – land of Biblia after it, as appears in historical writings of Isiodos, Theoktitos and Michail Psellos.

So what is the story behind this ancient wine of the Phoenicians? As far as the history of the word is concerned, we do indeed have to look back to those fabled seafarers. They were a Semitic people who settled the Levant in the 1st millennium BC. One of their key sites was present-day Byblos, which the Greeks of antiquity called Βύβλος (pronounced "vívlos"). How exactly the Greeks arrived at this name - originally made up of the Semitic consonants "Gbl" - is unclear. It takes some rather serious mishearing ...

The name of this city has, by roundabout ways, even held its ground in our everyday language. Since papyrus from Egypt - the most important writing material of the age - had its main trading hub in that very city, the papyrus scroll itself soon came to be called βυβλίον or βιβλίον (both pronounced "vivlíon"). To this day, "book" in Greek is βιβλίο ("vivlío"). And in German and English alike, a weighty book (really a small library) takes its name from here: the Bible. (Why we do not say "Vible", as one might actually expect, I have explained elsewhere.)

But how do we get from this excursion into antiquity and the naming of modern books back to our winery? A brief look at the sources shows that the area was indeed known in antiquity as Βιβλία χώρα ("vivlía chóra") or, for short, Βιβλίνη ("vivlíni"). But how did it come by that name? Did it have anything to do with the seafarers from Byblos and the wine they had brought along?

The area was in fact famous for its wine, the Βίβλινος οἶνος ("vívlinos ínos"). The poet Theocritus, for one, has a "Bibline" wine poured on Sicily - a wine that, despite longer ageing, evidently still impressed:

Two young chickens I slaughtered, And a suckling piglet; and I broached Bibline wine, Lovely of scent, nearly four years old, yet as if fresh from the press. Onions I served, and snails; a splendid drink it was. Later they poured it unmixed, to drink to the health Of whomever one wished, only the names had to be spoken; And we called them out loud and drank, as each one pleased.

So there was a Bibline wine, and a Bibline region too. The only question is: are the Phoenicians the missing link? Was the region named after the wine of the inhabitants of Byblos, which they poured there?

Ancient etymologists were apparently divided on whether the Bibline wine was simply named after the region - or after a grape variety found there by the name of Βιβλία ("vivlía"). This variety is also said to have occurred on Naxos. A river on that island named Βίβλος ("vívlos"), unknown today, is accordingly cited as a namesake. As far as I can see, however, scholarship today does indeed tend to trace the wine's name back to the region between Pangeon and the sea (some 10 km), while the Naxos trail could be explained by the presence of Thracians on that island - a secondary export, as it were. In other words: the Bibline wine was probably so called because its vines grew in the Bibline area, and were then planted elsewhere as well.

Where the Biblia Chora winery stands today, a very famous "Bibline wine" was thus probably indeed produced in antiquity - a wine that gave the region its name. Whether we really need the Phoenicians as prehistory, however, is not quite clear to me. Or rather: after a brief review of the sources, it seems to me unresolved what kind of "cause" the Phoenicians are supposed to be. In Heraclea Lyncestis - in present-day North Macedonia - an inscription of the 4th century BC does indeed speak of a "Bibline" vine planting (βυβλίνα μασχάλα), and there, at least, a planting based on material from the city of Byblos is what is meant.

Is the wine of the Bibline area "Bibline", then, because it goes back to vines from Byblos? What makes all this especially exciting is that a few years ago Vassilios Tsaktsarlis discovered a solitary vine on Mount Pangeon - or rather was made aware of it - and then cultivated it. These plants genuinely cannot be assigned to any known grape variety. Are they actually descendants of the Phoenicians' planting? According to DNA analysis, it is an old Greek variety. The romantic notion that Ktima Biblia Chora had revived ancient wine from the alleys of Byblos must therefore probably be laid to rest.

Speculating and dreaming remain permitted, though. Perhaps the Phoenicians played a part in some other way. Not as the winegrowers responsible, but perhaps still as prompters. One might consider, for instance, whether Βιβλία χώρα ("vivlía chóra") is not simply the "papyrus country". According to Pliny the Elder (Natural History 13,12), papyrus grows not only in Egypt but further north as well ... To me that seems intuitively at least as plausible as postulating the Phoenicians themselves into Thrace, where their presence appears not to be archaeologically established at all.

The wine now sold by Ktima Biblia Chora under the resonant name "Biblinos" (pronounced "Vívlinos"; Βίβλινος) is thus probably not, as the quotation from the website above might suggest, a Phoenician treasure ... yet nothing speaks against it being - and this, after all, is what matters - a revival of the Bibline wine known throughout the ancient Mediterranean! (If only for the fun of it, someone should one day age it following ancient practices!)

Is the modern version really as exquisite as Theocritus sings of the ancient product?

The Biblinos Rosé 2020 from the mysterious variety is at first rather enigmatic on the nose as well. Fruity there, it opens on the palate with plenty of minerality and phenolic grip. A many-layered wine, though still very hard to decipher, and one that may need some more time for its various aromas to differentiate. With enough patience, it already gives away a few secrets: the fruit tends more towards orchard fruit than berries, and on the finish, acidity and saltiness carry for a very long time. A wine already worth an excellent 17 points.

The Biblinos Red 2015 at first gives little away on the nose about the primary fruit of this mysterious vine. Pepper, dark berries and an alcohol teetering right at the limit at 14% dominate the picture. On the palate, too, the oak leads (500-litre casks) with rather heavy aromatics. And again something berry-like mingles underneath, like aronia. In the foreground, though, sandalwood remains - with nothing astringent about it (any more, presumably). With the equally dominant eucalyptus, one could almost think of an Australian Merlot. At the same time the wine still has a crunchy acidity that lends it enough elegance to place you almost on the Rhône. Wines of this style are very rare in Greece, and this one is well worth a great 17.5 points. More would probably have been possible. Perhaps, six years after the harvest (it was tasted in 2021; Theocritus, after all, speaks of four years ...), this wine sits in a certain trough in which the primary fruit has already faded somewhat while the more elegant tertiary aromas have yet to emerge. We are staying on the trail ...