We can read many news about the importance of wine in ancient Greece, the real first wine land, in one of the most beautiful epic poems of history: Omero's Odyssey. According to these legends, in Greece there're three meals in a day: ariston, deiphon and dorpon. The first one was a kind of breakfast, with wine and bred; the second and the third ones were lunch and dinner: during these meals it was drunk much wine, which was a symbol of social prestige, because it was quite expensive. Greek wine was exported in all Mediterranean sea (also in Italian coast) since the VII cent. b.C. Omero described Greek cities as full of vineyards and many kinds of grapes: vine trees aren't cultivated as bowers, but close to the ground, trying to avoid the contact between fruits and ground with branches and mats. In September Greek men and women harvested grapes, then filled up wood or stone basin and pressed the grapes. Almost all the must was used to make wine; a small part, instead, was used for vinegar.
The fermentation was inside "pithoi", big pottery vases strewed with resin and pitch and interred to avoid perspiration. After six months, they decant wine inside amphorae. According to Esiodo, instead, people harvested grapes at the beginning of October and the grapes, before pressing, were exposed to sun to increased the sugar and reduce humidity.
An important moment of Greek life was the "symposium" (syn + pìnein, drink together). Greek people lived wine drinking as a collective moment, regulated by own rules. Thanks to archaeological discoveries, historians have understand how the symposium was organized. An important rule of this event was the room, inside which people could look at and listen to each other. Usually table-companions lied near the table, two person for each divan, called "kline", with right arm free and left arm on the pillow under the head. Greek symposium was open only to men (women didn't have a share in symposium before Hellenistic age); first, table-companions are from three to nine (the numbers of the Graces and Muses), then, after the IV cent., the banquet became more bourgeois.
A marriage, an holy or a domestic feast could be occasions for a symposium, which always began at sunset. The owner of the house gave sits to guests, according to their importance; some young men served and mixed wine and water. After the dinner, a cup full of wine (without water) was passed among table-companions: all could drink from this one and, then, toast. This one was the first toast, but there were many other during dinner, like holy rites, washing hands and using scents, flower garlands, myrtle and ivy (a plant dedicated to Dionysus, which often decorated the cups).
The wine mixed with water inside craters (phot. up) is used to make offers: the offer from the first crater was for gods an Zeus Olimpio, from the second one it was for heroes, and the third offer was for Zeus Saver. Offers were accompanied by "peana", an ancient hymn, sang by all people and supported by the sound of an "aulos", that's a flute.
So the symposium was an holy event: drinking was holy too, because it was a way to enter into a magic and demoniacal world. Just wine, for Greek people, was not only a god's gift, but also a real god called Dionysus (Bacchus in Roman culture). People who drank a toast together created a club, a "thìasos", from which bad people were excluded and where holy aspect was very important.
During the symposium was chose a "simposiarca", a guide who regulated the ways of drinking.
The wine, both in Greece and in Rome, was very different from ours: it was almost a syrup, and for this reason it was always mixed with water (which was prevalent); moreover drinking only wine was considered a barbarian use.
Sometimes wine was mixed with honey and resins, to favour the conservation and the transport. While drinking, people usually ate fruit, walnuts, almonds, cakes, cheese and honey to delay the drunkenness.
The Symposium was open also to died people: Greeks thought that heroes, in died world, made banquets with flower-crown on the head.
Both Etruscans and Romans organized banquets like Greeks: in Etruscan culture there was still a strong link with dead world, in fact in the painted tombs of Tarquinia there're many paintings with banquets; instead in Roman culture it lost, in part, the holy aspect.