I nomi del vino in Gregorio Magno epist. 7,37

Three terms, which denote three different kinds of wine, occurring in the epistle 7, 37 (addressed to Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria) of the Registrum epistularum of Gregory the Great are here discussed. Regarding the term collatum, it appears likely that it could be a transliteration from the Greek κόλλαθον, a word which usually designates a container for liquids of capacity of 25 sextars (Epiph., mens. 82, 32) and which seems later to have come to indicate a specific kind of wine (Isid., orig. 20, 3, 7 and Euchol. Barb. 152, 1). The term uiritheum can instead be rather easily explained supposing a transliteration from Βηρύτιος (οἶνος) pronounced in the later Greek way (we can find a very similar example of such a transliteration in the text of the Latin translation of the treatise of Alexander of Tralles [2, p. 407 Puschmann] transmitted in ms. Montecassino, Archivio dell’Abbazia 97 [beginning of the 10th century]: uiretium). Finally, regarding the third term, cognidium, it has probably to be kept separate from the cognidium or coccum Gnidium which in later Latin medical texts indicates the berries of some shrubs (Daphne gnidium L. or Daphne oleoides Schreb.) employed for therapeutic aims. Since these berries are poisonous, it seems implausible that they had anything to do with the wine. More likely the word has to be considered a graphic variant of (uinum) Cnidium, a fine wine which was typical of Egypt (and this explanation would appear to be supported by the spellings Chinnidum, Chinidum, Chinydum and Cenididum for Cnidum occurring in the Rauenn. Cosmogr. [p. 30, 27 Schnetz] and in some witnesses of Vulg. Act. 27, 7).