Drinking in Excess?

How does the ancient level of wine consumption compare with the modern one? The average per capita wine consumption in modern Italy (15.7 U.S. gallons per year in 1996) is amongst the highest in the world. If we work backwards, and make some reasonable assumptions (e.g., that pre-adolescents drink very little wine, and that adolescents and adult women usually drink only half as much wine as adult men) a figure emerges of about 24.7 U.S. gallons per year as the typical consumption for a modern Italian man; thus, less than a third of that of a male Roman citizen, as estimated earlier (about 78.0 U.S. gallons per year).