THE VALUE OF WINE

Armed with a glass of wine, I am ready to do battle in the cultural wars over the issue of “values”.  Forget the role of wine in the New Testament, since it is clear that only really crazy people take the bible literally, and some of them still use grape juice in their sacraments.  I will make my case solely on my own personal experience, which, with all humility, I consider to be very valid.

Wine to me means family.  As a young boy I helped my father and grandfather pick the grapes in our vineyard.  I wish I could say that I stomped around on them in my bare feet, but alas, that pleasure was denied me.  I did however play in the huge upright barrel that remained from the commercial wine making days; access was through a small door that opened near the bottom.  I remember it as huge, but it was probably about 8-10 feet tall and 5-6 feet across.  But I digress.

Like so many first generation Italian-Americans, my father made wine every year, even long after the grapes were gone.  In fact he did this his entire life excluding the few years his health prevented him from doing so.  There were always 5-6 barrels of wine in our cellar.  In later years 5-gallon glass and plastic vessels replaced the wooden barrels.  A gallon of red wine was a fixture in our kitchen, often on the floor by my father or grandfather at dinnertime and the wine was sipped from small juice glasses, never the stemmed wine glasses we see today. 

When aunts, uncles, and cousins came to visit they never left without first having coffee, wine, and more often than not, food.  Until he died, all of my visits to my uncle Ferrar, dad’s older brother, began with a glass of wine along with some bread, cheese, and perhaps peppers and/or salami.  Of course he made his own wine, as did my uncle Ren, another older brother, who left the farm and moved to Long Island. (His name was Communardo, but everyone called him Ren...quite understandable.)  He had his own grape arbor in the back yard.

Wine means the warmth of friendship and sharing.  I do enjoy a glass of wine alone, at the end of the day, but I enjoy it more when I am sitting with one or more friends and neighbors in our kitchen or on our porch.  It is a quiet way of saying, “I am glad your here with me”.  It is a gesture of friendship and hospitality.

Family, friendship, hospitality...sounds a lot like love to me.