July 2025 Beverage of the Month
Algirdas Wolthus
Dominion of Myrkfaelinn
The Datini archive, held by the Archivio di Stato in Prato, contains 150,000 letters and 600 accounting registers from Francesco and Margherita Datini. Francesco’s documents have received attention from economic historians as they hold detailed information on business transactions from 1382 to 1410. Margherita’s letters are focused on the household, revealing intimate details about everyday life in late medieval Tuscany. These letters, sent between Florence and Prato, fiscuss all aspects of household life, including food, wine, clothing, markets, purchases, keys, travel, taxes, politics, family, neighbors, plague, gossip, guests, and hospitality. The information on wine is particularly interesting, as they both sold and were consumers of wine. In 1389, the letters discuss the barrels of red and white wine sold from the warehouse, which numbered 100 barrels in August. The type, origin and variety, as well as quality, of the wine is a recurring part of the letters from Margherita.
Two varieties mentioned in Margherita’s letters are still widely available: Trebbiano and Vernaccia. The Trebbiano family of grapes accounts for about one third of modern white wine grape production in Italy, and has been grown since at least Roman times. Trebbiano wine gives a fruity, light flavor, but is not a good keeping wine. It is a mainly a white table wine, but is also used for making balsamic vinegar. In France, it is also called Ugni blanc, and is widely used for the production of cognac. Vernaccia is also a wine with a deep history, and may go even earlier than the Roman Empire. Today, it is a common blending grape adding crisp, citrusy character to the final wine, though is also sold as a single varietal. Widely produced in Tuscany, it is sometimes blended with Trebbiano.
Other wines mentioned in the Datini letters are harder to fine. One, Razzese, probably refers to Ruzzese, a popular sweet wine in Liguria during Roman and medieval times. This now rare variety is being brought back by local wine producers in the region around Genoa. Other types mentioned by name are Raveruschio, La Chiusura, and Arsiccioli. The first two are obscure, while Arsiccioli is a small district south of Florence, small enough it barely registers in modern times.
If you want to find historically accurate wines to have with your medieval feasts, you can just pick up a bottle of modern Tuscan wine and likely have something appropriate. But the variety of wines they had was extensive, so they didn’t have just one. And to be like the Datinis, get a warehouse and fill it with 100 barrels to drink, sell, and share with your friends!