The Etruscans and wine: banquets, trade and a god called Fufluns

The short answer: the Etruscans, who lived in central Italy before Rome absorbed them, made wine part of their religion, their banquets and their trade. Their tombs are painted with wine-drinking feasts, their god of wine was called Fufluns, and their wine jars, shipped to southern France, helped start French winemaking.

Who were the Etruscans?

They lived in Etruria, roughly today's Tuscany, northern Lazio and part of Umbria. Their cities flourished for centuries before Rome took them over, and they spoke a language unlike any of their neighbours'.

Where they came from was argued about for 2,500 years. The Greek historian Herodotus said they came from Lydia, in today's western Türkiye; Dionysius of Halicarnassus said they were native to Italy. A 2021 study of ancient DNA (Posth and colleagues, Science Advances) pointed clearly to a local origin: the Etruscans were genetically close to their Latin neighbours.

Wine at the Etruscan table

The best evidence is in their tombs. At Tarquinia, north of Rome, painted burial chambers show banquets: couples reclining on couches, wreathed in myrtle, cups in hand, with servants bringing wine and musicians playing. The Tomb of the Leopards, from around 470 BC, is the famous one. The Etruscan necropolises of Tarquinia and Cerveteri have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.

One detail set them apart from the Greeks: Etruscan women reclined at the banquet beside the men. In the Greek world, respectable women did not join men's drinking parties.

Fufluns, the Etruscan god of wine

The Etruscans had their own god of wine and growing things: Fufluns, their version of the Greek Dionysus and the Roman Bacchus. The coastal city of Populonia, Pupluna or Fufluna to the Etruscans, is thought to be named after him. Centuries later, Pliny the Elder noted that Populonia still had a statue of Jupiter carved from a single vine stem, which had lasted for ages without decay. More on the Roman side in six questions about Bacchus.

Wine for export: the Etruscans and France

The Etruscans were traders, and wine was one of their goods. At Lattara, an ancient port near Montpellier in southern France, archaeologists found Etruscan amphorae from about 525–475 BC. A 2013 study led by Patrick McGovern of the Penn Museum, published in PNAS, showed they had held wine flavoured with pine resin and herbs such as rosemary, basil or thyme. Nearby stood a limestone pressing platform from about 425 BC: the earliest known evidence of winemaking in France.

McGovern's reading: by importing wine, the Etruscans gave the Gauls a taste for it, and the Gauls began to make their own, probably with vines brought from Italy. French wine's long story starts, in part, with Etruscan jars.

Vines that climb trees

In parts of Italy, vines were once trained up living trees instead of low trellises. The alberata of Aversa in Campania, where Asprinio vines climb poplars many metres high, is still farmed, and Slow Food, which protects it, traces the system to the Etruscans. Pliny described the same habit in Campania: vines that “marry” the poplars and climb so high that a picker's contract covered the cost of his funeral.

What the old stories get wrong

• “The Etruscans invented the wine barrel.” There's no evidence. Their wine travelled in clay amphorae; Pliny describes wooden casks as a custom of the Alpine regions.
• “Falernian was an Etruscan wine.” Falernian, Rome's great prestige wine, came from northern Campania, well south of Etruria.
• “The Romans drank Etruscan Chianti.” Chianti is a medieval name for a wine. We don't know what grapes the Etruscans grew or what they called their wines.
• “Their god of wine was Liber Pater.” Liber was a Roman and Italic god. The Etruscan one was Fufluns.

Where to taste old Etruria today

Old Etruria is still wine country: Tuscany, northern Lazio and Umbria, home of Chianti Classico, Montepulciano and Orvieto. Wine towns such as Cortona and Volterra stand on Etruscan cities, and the coast of Livorno, Bolgheri included, has its own wine route: the Strada del Vino Costa degli Etruschi, the Etruscan Coast. Visit the painted tombs of Tarquinia, then order a local red with dinner. It's as close as you'll get to an Etruscan banquet.

More ancient wine: Pliny the Elder on wine and why wine started in clay pots.

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