About this book

Book fragment

Throughout history wine has been a very ambivalent symbol, just like the god that represents it, Dionysus. On the one hand, wine -- especially red wine -- means blood and sacrifice, and sacrifice means youth and eternal life and sacred intoxication. As the Greek and Persian poets used to sing, it allowed humans to participate in a way of being that is only allowed the gods. The upper ideogram of life was in its origin a vine leaf, and it is connected to the the idea of M. Eliade – that of the Queen mother, whose name was the “Vine goddess” in a fountain of natural creation. The use of the vine’s leaf to cover the bodies of Adam and Eve in the representation of the myth of paradise. Grapes in bunches are usually symbols of fertility, not only because they are fruits but because of sacrifices and red-coloured wine. In the Baroque allegories of the Holy Lamb, there are many wheat’s ears and bunches of grapes, representing bread and wine by the holy lamb.

Wine symbolises the achievements of humans in nature, as they are capable of obtaining raw materials, process them and use them with their own intelligence and work. The vine is also a symbol of union, family and safety.