246 CHAvDAR TzOCHEv
exports compared to local consumption. So would probably Chios, Corinth,
and Mende during the Classical period if their amphoras were regularly
stamped. The distribution patterns of the amphoras from these, and from many
other Greek city-states suggest the existence of micro-economies, whose out-
put regularly exceeded the local demand, meaning that they aimed at foreign
markets, and managed their output according to the demand created by these
markets. If we call this market-oriented output a ‘surplus,’ it would be appro-
priate to differentiate it from the surplus that was simply a produce in excess of
the producer’s local needs. Even if in both cases the term is technically correct,
the two types of surpluses imply different underlying strategies and modes of
production: as Unwin ( 1991 : 11) put it in the case of wine, ‘a subsistence poly-
culture economy, where vines have been cultivated and wine made as one part
of a household’s wider domestic economy,’ and ‘a market oriented monoculture
of vines producing wine for an external demand.’ While the clear distinction
between these two modes of production in the ancient Mediterranean remains
controversial (Horden and Purcell 2000 : 215–16), the evidence for Thasos sug-
gests that part of the massive surplus exported in amphoras was generated by
large-scale domains specialized in winemaking (Salviat 1986 : 150–1).
It is remarkable that wine assumes such a prominent position among the
export-oriented industries in Ancient Greece. This is not only a consequence
of the disproportionate amount of amphora evidence. Wine was a staple, and
constantly in demand; but it is the spread of sympotic culture that turned partic-
ular wines into luxury commodities and vastly increased the demand for them.
Furthermore, the fact that wine can be stored facilitated the market-oriented
mode of production. When packed in amphoras, wine has a margin of several
years in which to enter the market, thus providing producers the flexibility
to withhold or place their goods on the market according to fluctuations in
demands and prices or to reduce the consequences of poor harvests. Since
vintage wines were appreciated in antiquity (Salviat 1986 : 178–9; Brock and
Wirtjes 2000 ), storing wine could also be regarded not only as a way of hoard-
ing wealth and as risk-avoiding behavior, but also as form of profit-oriented
investment (Unwin 1991 : 13–14).The Relationship between Production and Markets
To explain some patterns of amphora distribution in the Aegean, Mark Lawall
introduced the idea of a ‘core-zone relationship’ – a theoretical model of rela-
tionship between producer and importer in which ‘the importer’s access to
the exporter’s products depends primarily on changes in the volume of pro-
duction’ (Lawall 2005 : 202). The model received its name from the assump-
tion that it applies to trade between cities in geographical proximity, where