Chronicling the Italian wine vintage of 1185

According to Giovanni Codagnello, the author of the medieval Chronicle of Piacenza, 1185 was a spectacular year for Piacentino wine. Wine made in and around Piacenza (in Emilia-Romagna) would correspond roughly today to the Colli Piacentini DOC, a wine region south of Piacenza, famous more in antiquity than in our time. We know that Cicero publicly bera…