The wines of Naples

Abstract

In the ongoing projects focused on gastronomic lexicon, the vocabulary of wine is still very limited, and there is no reference repertoire, even partial, yet. This paper examines the wine denominations mentioned in Neapolitan literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and confirms their progression through the use of them in nineteenth-century dialect vocabularies from the same area and in sources of diverse nature, even outside the region. This study reviews the state of research, highlights historical and linguistic concerns that are still not resolved, and proposes innovative ideas regarding etymology. The constant comparison between old documentation and the nineteenth century lexicographical tradition allows one to trace the semantic history of words, considering their persistence, survival, diffusion, their loss of vitality, their obsolescence, and their diffusion in other dialects and in the Italian language. This paper is connected to a 2022 precedent work that focuses on food names in Neapolitan dialect lexicography.