Rombola
The first testimony that we have about the cultivation of rombola  vine at Cephalonia comes from a document dating since 1520 and is  an inventory of the assets of the church. However, since this vine is an adapted whitegrape vine, which evolved in the unique climate of Cephalonia and takes root in calcium rich land, we have to search for its past many centuries before and primarily in the rural area of the island because it does not flourish outside.
Even though there are grapes with the same name on surrounding islands, there is no relation between the Cephaloniean variety which produces light blonde fruit, with round thin-skinned grapes, and golden wine, with subtle aroma, acidic reaction and tastes like freshly-sliced fruit.
It is probably more accurate to say that some whitegraped vine, common ancestor, adapted to the climatic and land conditions of every new environment it migrated to, creating numerous new, synonymous, varieties with obvious local characteristics.
The Italian traveler Pellegrino Brocardi, who visited the Ionian islands during May 1557, mentions the rombola, wine he refers both to the grape and the wine produced that he praises a lot.
Although most varieties of wine-bearing grapes flourish on flat fields, the rombola prefers the mountainous slopes. This does not mean that the rombola cannot grow on the flat fiels of Cephalonia. But there the grape degrades to a rougher, thick-skinned fruit and the wine that it bears is stronger, less aromatic and several shades darker. This “flat-field rombola” is blended with tsaousi wine and gives a wine which has the name but not the flavor or the grace of the mountainous rombola.
The word rombola accepts many explanations. Professors Heinrich and Renee Kahane, in their book published in 1940, related the name rombola to the latin ribolla, for a type of wine that was prominent in Istria. It was a red wine that during the 14th century was produced at Istria, Adria, Aemilia and genova. Ribolla is related to rubellus, which means reddish. However, all these  explanation attempts are not satisfactory and unrelated to the type of grape and the quality of wine produced by the Cephalonian rombola.
At various villages of Cephalonia, and at the opposite coasts with cultivation tradition spanning many centuries, and with grape varieties which share the name rombola it is observed that the locals call rombolies the innocuous jokes and teasers, that is those that make you smile but do not cause ill-feelings. Thus since the rombola wine has exactly these qualities, namely it is an exciting drink that its drinker does not need to count the number of glasses consumed, it took the name rombol(i)a as both pleasing and harmless.
The production of the wine at Cephalonia, follows till today the undulations of historical events. No other agricultural product has been identified so much with the history of the island, as the products of the rombola vine.