You ever think of smoking wine? The Romans did. I mean, they didn’t wrap it in paper and try to light it, but they did have a room built for smoking wine called a fumarium. The fumarium from the Roman town of Glanum outside of St. Remy de Provence in France is shown below.
They thought that putting amphorae of wine in a smoky chamber preserved the wine by acceleration the aging of it. It did add smokiness to a wine’s flavor, they say.
There’s not much written about smoked wine that I can tell. Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine is referenced in the Wikipedia article on the Fumarium.
You can visit the Fumarium and the Roman ruins of Glanum on an interesting walk from St. Remy that includes a visit to Van Gogh’s rooms in the Saint Paul asylum and a fine lunch: One Day in St. Remy
2008 in California was a year of wildfires during the growing time, and winemakers battled to make wines without the smokiness that would have occurred naturally. Funny how tastes change.
Tonight I will leave my glass near the barbecue and pretend I am Roman.