Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols - Adele Nozedar - Страница 220

The symbolic meanings of wine are generally attached to the red variety; it seems that a nice dry white or a sweet rosé carries no hidden mystery. Here are some things to think about next time you open a nice bottle of claret.

The red color means that wine is often linked to blood, particularly since the wine is the “blood” of the grape. Because it looks like blood, wine is often used in rituals where blood would otherwise be called for, and because ceremonial wine is often drunk from a shared chalice, it is seen, like bread, as a unifying principle. Wine is male, and bread is female. As a partner to bread in the ritual of the Eucharist, the consecrated wine is transformed into the blood of the Christ, a reminder of both sacrifice and immortal life, and it’s this transformative power that accords wine with much of its mystique. When the water is turned into wine in the story of the Marriage at Cana, what is really being shown here is the transformation of the mundane into the magical, the Earthly into the Heavenly. It is this magical process of fermentation at work that explains why wine is associated with Bacchus/Dionysus, and the intoxicating power of wine is symbolic of divine possession.

The phrase, “In vino veritas” links wine to the truth and is a reminder that those intoxicated by perhaps a little too much of that nice claret will be more likely to speak the truth than most, which can be good or bad, depending on the circumstances.