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Healthy Living > Wine History
“Long ago, when the
gods walked the earth, Dionysus found a vine that had a miraculous power over
the animals that drank of its fermented nectar. Intrigued, Dionysus planted a
small vine in a bird’s skull and continued on his way. This vine quickly outgrew
its little pot and needed a larger container. Dionysus then planted it in a
lion’s skull. Then, when the vine outgrew this, Dionysus planted it in a
donkey’s skull. Dionysus gets back to early humankind and shows these mortals
how to tend to the vine and how to make wine from its fruit. Dionysus notes,
with great enjoyment, a curious side effect: when humans first begin drinking
wine, they sing like birds, then they have the courage of lions, but in the end
they make asses of themselves.” –Late Roman Tale
Grapes are the only fruit that
will spontaneously ferment without any help from man. The yeasts found on the
skin of the grape only have to come into contact with the sugary juices inside
and BOOM! A fizzy, alcoholic, slightly sweet beverage.
Imagine how that first human must have felt after packing a load of ripe grapes
into an animal skin for a special treat later, and, instead of finding sweet,
juicy grapes, he found a kicky, fizzy, seething liquid. Of course he would try
it, it’s in our nature. How would he describe it? Slightly bitter, slightly
sweet, a little fizzy from an unfinished fermentation, and with something else…
So he tastes a little more and then begins to
hand the very first wine glass around to the rest of his tribe. And they drink.
And drink. Wow! Imagine what the first buzz must have been like, let alone the
first hangover. How would you describe it? In a world full of early deities and
forest symbols, the grape vine was surely towards the top of the list for
allowing humankind the joys of wine. Without the knowledge of fermentation,
which we only began to understand in the 1800’s (thank you Louis Pasteur) early
wine was truly a gift of the gods, able to induce trances and visions and
convulsions in the imbiber. What potent magic! With the developing cult of
wine, which dates far back into the fogs of Eurasia, a true reverence for the
vine and its product developed. Early cultures quickly learned that certain
areas produced better wines than other areas. For example, the Romans had a thing
for the wines of Falerian (think of this as the Screaming Eagle of its time),
and more specifically, the Opimian Vintage of B.C. 121. In Tutankhamun’s tomb,
sealed amphorae of wine were found with seals marking the winemaker and even
comments like “…of very good quality”. The early Greeks had planted vineyards
in Italy before the Romans: the regions of Greco di Tufo (literally “the
Greek’s Tufa”) and most of Dalmatia and the Caucasus were enjoying critical
acclaim during the time the First Kingdom of Egypt was busy dealing with “…the
hated Kush” of the Upper Nile regions-well over 8 500 years ago.
With
the coming of Greece as a power base, the cult of the vine switched into high
gear. A shadowy figure described has half male, half female, or even half animal,
was said to arrive from the mountains of the east. Bacchus, as he/she was first
known, is a foreigner in the Greek Pantheon. His arrival was said to have
brought the shadows of the forest and forbidden knowledge to the city-states of
ancient Greece. On one side, Bacchus brought the grapes and wine to
civilization. On the other, Bacchus’ cult, known as the Bacchae, whose
followers were Bacchanales and conducted a combination of fertility rites and
mysteries brought hysteria and “dark forces” to the people. Basically, Bacchus
represented both male and female, light and darkness, god and devil. These rites are beautifully illustrated in
Eurypides’ The Bacchae (a great work if you have not read it). The story
goes, briefly, like this: the king of
Thebes, Pentheus, is furious with the Bacchantes for having left the city to
worship what he believes to be a false god. Bacchus, angry with Pentheus for
refusing to worship him and recognize his divinity in Thebes, decides to teach
Pentheus about divine wrath. In disguise, Bacchus convinces Pentheus to dress
up as a woman in order to spy on the Bacchantes, in whose numbers his mother
and sisters are to be found. Bacchus gets Pentheus to climb a tree “for a
better look” and then incites the intoxicated women to attack Pentheus, who
tear him limb from limb, with his mother tearing off his head in classic Greek
style. This story illustrates how powerful Bacchus was. Here was a god who
would freely hand over himself for consumption to his followers, and by
allowing oneself to consume Bacchus, you in turn allowed Bacchus’ power into
your body. (Sound at all familiar? Hello, Christianity?) In so doing,
your actions were no longer yours, but those of Bacchus. With the recovery of
your senses, surprisingly, little remorse, for those around you knew of the
power of Bacchus.
This
image of Bacchus changed very little from ancient Greek to Roman and even early
Christian theisms, oddly enough. Even the Romans had a place for the “ultimate
partier” on Olympus, changing his name to Dionysus and allowing his cults to
survive, not in temples, but in the forests where Dionysus and his Maenads,
Satyrs, and his right-hand man, Pan, were to be found.
As one can imagine, the cults of
Bacchus were wildly popular, passing through the centuries and millennia in
more or less the same state, perhaps not as “heathen” (literally “of the woods”
or “wild”), but still identifiable in their state. In modern times, we can see
the Beaujolais Nouveau rally in November every year to the staid clime of the
Napa Valley Wine Auction share the same thread as the Bacchanales of so long
ago: A true love and reverence for one of the greatest gifts nature has given
to humanity: Vitis vinifera, the wine-bearing vine.
Healthy Living > Wine History
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