Falernian (Latin: Falernum) was a strong white wine popular in the classical Roman period, produced from Aglianico grapes (and quite possibly Greco as well)[1] on the slopes of Mount Falernus (now Monte Massico) near the border of Latium and Campania.
In describing Faustian Falernian, Pliny the Elder alluded to this as he noted "It is the only wine that takes light when a flame is applied to it".
The physician and gourmet Galen, writing c. 180 CE, doubted that all the Falernian wine on sale in the Roman Empire could possibly be genuine.
As part of the ruins of ancient Pompeii, a price list on the wall of a bar establishment notes The Roman poet Catullus extolled the virtues of Falernian in one of his poems The Roman poet Horace mentions Falernian in Odes 2.3:[11] It was also the wine that Petronius, in the Satyricon, has Trimalchio serve at his dinner banquet.
Quintus Dellius complained to Cleopatra that while he and other dignitaries were served sour wine by Mark Antony in Greece, Augustus's catamite were drinking Falernian in Rome.