The Spirit of Wine
Finding Religion in the Fruit of the Vine
The Spirit of Wine invites readers to discover how the fruit of the vine can deepen one’s spiritual life. Internationally acclaimed professor of comparative world religions Dr. Stephen Lloyd-Moffett reveals how a life filled with wine can act as a surrogate for traditional religions and spiritual communities. Whether you are a novice in the Church of Wine or already a devotee, this book will deepen your appreciation for wine by exploring the rich history of oenological conversions, mystical wine experiences, and ancient wine rituals. The book concludes with practical tips, including the secret to creating vibrant wine communities and the virtue of monastically-inspired spiritual drunkenness. Finally, a book that pairs perfectly with a glass of wine.
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Table of Contents
Part I: The Spiritual Journey of Wine Devotees
Chapter 1: The Stages of Wine Devotion
Chapter 2: The Doctrines & Dogmas of the Church of Wine
Chapter 3: The Rituals of Wine
Chapter 4: The Mysticism of Wine
Chapter 5: Pinotphilia and The Religious Fanatics of the World of Wine
Part II: Becoming a Wine Devotee
Step 1: Cultivate Connection to the Wine
Step 2: Mindfulness and the Art of Wine Drinking
Step 3: Appreciate the Mystery of Wine
Step 4: Create a Wine Community
Step 5: Discover Spiritual Inebriation
From the Introduction:
It is Sunday and cars file into the parking lot filled with nicely-dressed believers congregating for their regular gathering. They are greeted by a welcoming committee as officiates scramble behind the scenes to put together the final touches of the event. The bread and the wine are already arranged precisely on the table; background music sets the mood; everyone is smiling. The members come hoping to step out of their daily lives, learn something, and perhaps, find inspiration. They share a common belief in the veracity and worthiness of their cause. They come, also, to see old friends and perhaps make new ones. The building they file into, however, is not a church, but a winery. These are wine club members who have arrived to pick up their quarterly shipment. They are not traditionally religious, or perhaps they are.
This book is about those wine drinkers who are not just passionate about wine, but have a kind of religious devotion to it. If you picked up this book, it is likely that you are one of them or you at least suspect that your family members might think you are. For you, wine has, in the words of the legendary wine writer Jancis Robinson, taken “hold of a person” and sunk “its claws pretty deep.” You are the wine devotees and your altar might just be wine itself. This book is here to explain the curious part of your soul that finds fulfillment at the bottom of a glass.
If you are not sure if you are a wine devotee, consider the follow quiz:
ð Do you join multiple wine clubs or mailing lists, sometimes even contemplating offering everything short of your first child to get on the waiting list of wines you freely admit are cults?
ð Have your vacations begun to look like wine pilgrimages, with Burgundy or Bordeaux acting as your Mecca?
ð Are the folks in your tasting group some of your most meaningful relationships?
ð Does your idea of a juicy scandal involve oak extract and powdered tannin?
ð Do you find your blood involuntarily boil when you see someone put ice cubes in chardonnay, drink pinot from a puny glass, or mispronounce mourvèdre?
ð Is your cellar the clearest sign that you must believe in an afterlife because no one could possibly empty such a cellar in a single lifetime?
If you checked a majority of the boxes above, then you just might be a wine devotee.
Perhaps you identify with the old German poet Johann Wolfgang van Goethe who responded to a question regarding which three things he would take to a deserted island if he knew he was going to be marooned there. He reportedly stated: "Poetry, a beautiful woman and enough bottles of the world's finest wines to survive this dry period!" He was then asked if he could only bring two things, which of the three would he give up? He succinctly replied: "The poetry!" The questioner was slightly surprised and pressed Goethe further: and if you could have only one thing with you, which would it be. And Goethe thought for a couple of minutes and was said to answer: "It depends on the vintage!"
If you suspect you identify with Goethe, you are not alone. Tens of thousands of people around the world would have a harder time imagining a life without wine than they would a functional Congress. Having known many of these wine devotees and have inclinations in that direction myself, I have even come to feel sorry for the spouses of wine devotees, especially the wife of the self-styled “Prince of Pinot,” who once declared: "My wife says I am busy with pinot noir every waking moment. Not true, I also dream about it.”
The point is that for devotees like us, wine captures our heart, mind, and soul completely. We are not just living but “living the wine life,” as the author of a “wine devotional” states it. Yes, there actually are wine devotionals for those who have caught the bug. One devotional even reminds wine devotes to “set aside time and find a quiet place that is yours alone” each morning in order to “sip this book” as you journal your experiences of the “spirit” of wine leading you to veritas, Truth. If part of you suspects that deep truths lie hidden in opaque greenish bottles, you are on the path of finding spirituality in the fruit of the vine.
You are probably saying to yourself right now that you’ve never considered yourself religious or even spiritual, at least not toward wine. It is true, there is no recognized First Dionysian Church of Chardonnay, no Winemaker’s Creed, and no one is dunked in a wine vat to be baptized, as appealing as that might sound to some of us if it were pinot. The argument of this book is that if you set aside the list of “official” religions in your mind and what you think should constitutes all the elements of a spiritual life, then you might see that wine sometime plays a similar role to other, more traditional objects of devotion such as God or the Dao. Perhaps you have had a spiritual relationship to wine all along, but you simply haven’t seen it through that lens before. This book hopes to open your eyes to a potentially positive spiritual outlet by making you aware of the spiritual life you are already living. It is about making you see your relationship to wine in a new way.
As such, this book is not like other wine books: it is not a wine buying guide, a travel narrative through wine country, a primer on tasting, a textbook on wine marketing, or a technical book on winemaking. It is also not a reflection on the philosophical questions raised by wine, which has become a curiously popular genre as of late. It is not even a history of wine’s relationship to religion, though it will draw upon history from time to time. It is about revealing the meaning of wine for people like us and the manifold ways in which wine can act as a replacement or surrogate for the human impulses traditionally fulfilled by organized religions. As such, it focuses on the non-physical elements of wine—the soul of wine, if you will. It ponders what occurs when people begin to see the fruit of the vine as something sacred. The ancient world recognized it as the cult of the god Dionysius. Today, we may have all officially become wine atheists, but this book suggests that perhaps we’ve changed less than most people assume. It is time to found a new religion of wine.
A Taste of What is to Come
Our journey into the religious world of wine devotion has two parts. The first section is devoted to the universal fraternity of wine believers and their journey to becoming wine devotees. It provides insights into the purpose of wine rituals, wine dogmas, and the sacred world of wine. It ends with an exploration of the epitome of the wine devotees, the Pinotphiles. The second part of the books walks you through five steps in making wine spiritual in your life. Each chapter in Part II ends with some practical tips for integrating the insights of that step into your life.
Throughout the book, I will not take a stand on the most sacred of all grapes (though it is obviously pinot noir) or the most absurd forms of wine devotion (again, obviously pinot noir). I should also warn you that throughout this book, I will often glide seamlessly between talking about wine and talking about spirituality—so seamlessly, in fact, that it may be difficult to tell which one I am addressing. This style is on purpose. The facility and ease in which one can travel partially proves my point: it is sometimes mighty challenging to differentiate the two. The life of wine sometimes looks suspiciously like the religious life (and the religious life sometimes looks like the life of wine). My suggestion if you experience anxiety whether a statement is about wine or religion is to take another sip (for this book pairs well with wine) and wait to the end of the paragraph—it should be clear by then. If not, have another sip.
Excerpt
From Becoming a Wine Devotee Step 1: Cultivate Connection to the Wine
Francois Millet is the “chef de cave” at the legendary Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé in Musigny, Burgundy. When those of us in the new world dream of the old world, we imagine places like de Vogüé. It is an old stone building near a church in sleepy town, a quiet village where every day is like the one before, for centuries. Francois speaks nearly perfect English, yet still I found myself lost early on in our conversation. He seemed to be talking about Amoureuses, a woman in love. She is the first lady of the village, he told me, dolled up in the finest clothes and carrying herself regally. Yet she stands at a distance, never allowing us to embrace her. We contemplate her rather than touch her. And when we do, we discover that she has sadness just below the layers of perfect make-up. She is affected by death, yet doesn’t want to show it. Every year, she is somewhat different—or I should say every vintage, for I later realized that Amoureusus is a delicate red wine, not a person.
When we went down into the ancient cellars, we first tasted her husband, the Musigny (which also, by the way, demands contemplation) and then the crazy uncle by marriage, the Bonnes-Mares. By the time we reached the lady of the day, I must admit that I was skeptical of such anthropomorphism. Perhaps it was the power of suggestion, but I have never tasted a wine in quite the same way. It was not just analyzing something but communing with someone. She was alive. I felt underdressed around her and I instinctively straightened my posture. She drew me to her, not as a wine but as a person. It struck me for the first time that great wine has this capacity like few other non-human entities on earth.
As humans born of other humans, the default parameter for understanding relationships is human. As a result, our tendency is to humanize anything with which we have a meaningful relationship. Of course, the ability to anthropomorphize is strong—think of the pet rock craze of the 1970s and longstanding tradition of sailors naming and referring to their boats by female names. It is also a staple of religious worlds, such as when people depict God as a stern father or worship in front of anthropomorphic image of a divinity. There seems to be a direct correlation between the extent of anthropomorphization and the depth of relationship formed: the more one can imagine a relationship in human terms, the more significant the relationship has the capability of being. Here wine is nearly unique in the extent that it has become personified for people. Think about the human story of wine:
Each winter in a vineyard (that is itself usually given a name), an orgy of conception occurs with new grape clusters formed seemingly out of thin air. They begin small and fragile, but their cells multiply and they become sturdier over time. These clusters will eventually become the wine with whom we have a relationship, but we avoid getting too attached because one never knows the final outcome at this early stage. The wine is still in the womb at this point and those who are part of the process are filled with anticipation. A wine has what historian William Younger calls a “heaving” birth and indeed at one winery with which I am familiar, the fermentation room is called the birthing room.
The newly-birthed wine then goes through a period of infancy where it is kept in a protective space in a barrel until it is ready to grow up and be released to the world. At this point, we talk about the wine as we talk about infants and toddlers: their personalities are beginning to show but it is all potential. We final allow it to graduate and send it out into the world, hoping that we’ve prepared it to change in good ways but fearing that we might have done something that will lead to defaults or failures, some of which might not appear for many years.
We speak of the early years of a wine’s release as being “young,” which as with people, usually means excusably brash, immature, unsubtle, and still trying to find its way in the world. Unlike wine beverage drinkers, wine devotees allow wine to mature. The collection of wine is critical because if one does not watch a wine develop throughout a case or over multiple vintages, then the relationship to wine is like a series of one-night stands: titillating but ultimately leaving one with an empty feeling. So, wine devotees look for connections across time: multiple bottles opened across time may be best or at least multiple vintages of the same wine or the same region. Most wines do improve, but some wines and some people seem to get stuck in the infantile phase and like people, wines who never mature are really disappointing jerks.
As wines and humans age, they get more complex; it is as if new layers of knowledge are added upon older ones so that we can speak of mature, aged wines as sort of wise wines, with whom sometimes you have to be patient to receive their wisdom but there is something deep and meaningful in them. At this stage, we begin to give wines human personality traits. We say that some wines are friendly and approachable; others are rather closed and reserved, while still others are dark and moody. We treat them like they belong to different types of social clubs: some wines are graceful, poised, polished, charming, and refined while others are aggressive, disagreeable, unpretentious, and ugly. We bemoan wines that look pretty but have obvious signs of inauthenticity such as additives or severe manipulation—like plastic surgery, it is fine unless we notice it.
We also set up our wines on dates. These dates can be with new palates or with different foods. We speak like Jewish grandmothers proud of their matchmaking abilities when they work—“I just knew she would like the 2005 pinot” or “I just knew that wine would go well with my duck recipe.” And when these dates fail, we entertain all the disappointment and second guessing that occur in human relationships.
Sadly, wine can get over the hill. They lose their vivacity and tend to smell more and more like a nursing home. One gets the sense that their best days are behind them. And there is sadness in watching this decline and often regret: I wish I got to spend more time with it at the height of its vivacity. But all things must die and ultimately, wines that are over the hill return to the earth and the cycle of life begins anew.
The ability to form deep relationships with particular wines makes it unique. You might keep sophisticated art or music for extended periods of time, but there is no reciprocity or dynamism in the relationship to a painting or a piece of music. You might be changing over time, but the object of your interest is not. A dish of food may have incredible complexity and be rapidly changing, but you do not experience it over a long duration, usually just for a few hours. Many of the fermented portions of our diet–cheese, coffee, beer, spirits, breads, pickled vegetables, and others—demonstrate complexity and dynamism, but their duration is also limited when compared to wine. As one winemaker told me, “There is no back label with a story on a beer can.”
Certain intoxicants, tobacco products, and natural drugs might be consumed over time and display complexity but there is little dynamism present—one does not speak of tobacco getting better over time and no other product places so prominently on it, a birthdate. There may be regional examples that come close to developing a relationship like wine—the Chinese with tea, the Swiss with cheese, the Japanese with soy sauce, the Italians with balsamic vinegar, the Latin Americans with chilies, Californians with marijuana—but there is no other category where the association is so strong for so long across such a wide array of cultures.
The story of humanity’s relationship to wine is unlike any other: humans fall in love with wine like no other non-breathing entity. We fall in love with wine as if it was a person or, perhaps, a deity. The ancient Greeks made wine human through a personality, Dionysius. Perhaps the modern wine devotee is simply doing the same. Dionysius may no longer be invoked, but he is certainly smiling.