Roman occupation

After the destruction of Carthage (146 a. BC) and the conquest of Andalusia Peninsula, in the year 124 a. of J. C. Metellus conquered Mallorca on behalf of Rome. The import of wines from the Italian Peninsula, mainly in the region of Campania and amphorae of type Dressel, increased as a result of increased maritime traffic and banning the cultivation of the vine.

The policy of prohibiting the cultivation of the vine was initiated by Carthage and then followed by the Romans to protect the wines of their respective cities. It was not a particular policy with the island, since in the second century. BC, the Senate gave orders against viticulture area Narbonne (France) or authorization is granted for only Roman colonists could plant vines in Roussillon (France), to the detriment of the Greeks and Phoenicians.

It points to the time of Augustus (63 a. JC-14 d. AD) the end of the policy of prohibition. The Chronicles of Diodorus, who was a Greek historian born in Sicily and contemporary of Julius Caesar and Augustus, give a good idea of the condition of growing grapes and olives in those days in the Balearics. Diodorus recounts that Ibiza 'has little land of vineyards and olive grafts acebuches' while Mallorca and Menorca' lack of wine at all, so I have high regard for its rarity ... (sic), being also very rare oil, prepared with the juice of mastic, which mixed with lard, thereby smearing his body '.

The 'Punic' Ibiza would have been the first island of the Balearic where the vines are cultivated. In Mallorca and Menorca, vines have been cultivated for the first time on the threshold of the Christian era, coinciding with the end of Prohibition and possibly Roman colonists. Years later, PLINIO (. 23-79 BC) was the oldest praise the Balearic wine: "The Lacetani vineyards in Hispania are famous for much wine that they get but the Tarragona and what are lauronenses its fineness and the Balearic that compare with the best in Italy "(PLIN. Nat. Hist. XI, 122).

In appreciation of Borrás (Borras C., 1978, Volume II, pp. 33-96), the testimony of Pliny is' an extraordinary compliment coming from a first century Roman, used to have the best of all provinces Empire '. According to this historian, and referring to the vine, says: 'Anyway, its cultivation was not extensive, since no record that was exported, at least in quantity, limited to some small farms, reaching perhaps a of them, on the grounds of Son Mas, Manacor, where he was a splendid Roman bust of Dionysos, god of the vine 'found. Archaeological testimony of those times is also a great dolium obtained in dredging the Port of Palma 1.44 m high, and intended for wine fermantation.