I don’t drink wine for health…

Although I do think wine has health benefits, not least the sheer pleasure it affords at table—enhancing the food I’m eating, easing genial conversation with friends, promoting the sense of good feeling and wellbeing that such gatherings engender, at home, at a restaurant, or simply sharing a bottle alfresco with one friend, or six. Just writing about it here prompts the urge to do it, and soon.

I don’t drink wine to get drunk either. As that doyenne of wit, Dorothy Parker, put it— “liquor is quicker.”  I do on occasion like a good, dry, classic Martini, straight up and shaken. In smallish glasses, not the the gigantics offered today that hold three times the original jigger and a half. They warm up too quickly. They are lethal to the liver.

So the new dictum from the medical world—that no amount of alcohol is healthy, and, if one must drink, the limit is one drink for a woman, two for a man – a week!—has created nervous fear in the wine industry. Calm down, guys.  Humankind has been making and drinking alcohol beverages (heartily) since the Neolithic era. The latest prohibitive pronouncement is hardly likely to impede that flow.  At least not seriously; maybe a cautionary dent against excess, which is all to the good.

Some say wine was first, some say beer, which appeared when humans began to farm. It’s highly likely, however, that nature’s process predated agriculture. When the ancients sighted birds and other animals tipsy from pecking away at fermented berries, they were enticed to try the juice for themselves; they liked the effect. And there is that ancient Persian fable of King Jamshid’s slave girl who accidentally drank the juice of fermented grapes and found her headache soothed.  A health remedy? 

Wine games-Kottabos-

played

at Greek banquets

The ancient Persians, and then the Greeks, thought wine had medicinal qualities, in limited doses, of course. But they didn’t imbibe copious amounts of wine, as reported by Plato and Xenophon, for health—but for sheer pleasure, and to reach the inebriated state that loosened the brain and spurred creativity:  “Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine,” wrote Aristophanes, "that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.” 

Almost all cultures, including the most ancient, deplored drunkenness—in words, if not deeds. Noah’s sons were shamed finding him in that state. Greek feasts and wine games described by Plato and other enlightened, highly civilized figures devolved into Roman orgies and the infamous vomitoria.

Yet throughout time, wine’s appeal has retained its convivial and romantic aura, affirmed in poetry and song. And its mystical aspect as well, no matter how much effort is made to “demystify” it.  Many there are who try to demystify the results of fermentation as merely the outcome of a scientific process. But they can never explain how, or why, the simple juice of crushed grapes is transformed into a substance of such diversity, depth, nuance and complexity of flavors that whole books are written about its various incarnations, panels convened to judge quality and award medals, classes held to explore its infinite variety, hours spent savoring, comparing, discussing all of the above. And with such pleasure, enthusiasm, and just plain fun. Something healthy about that, would you agree?

In my wine classes I gave one assignment:  try at least one wine in the coming week you haven’t tasted before and tell us about it in the next class. “Note: it’s the first thing I’ll ask each of you next time.”  Lively exchanges ensued. And interesting discoveries.

            I urge every one to give it a try. There are so many ways and places to do that today. Stay tuned.