Wine Trivia (answers at the bottom)
1. Wine was known in most ancient civilizations, most notably in Ancient Greece. Who was the Ancient Greek god of wine?
A. Dionysos
B. Bacchus
C. Aphrodite
D. Apollo
2. When the wine sommelier or steward pours you a taste of wine in your glass when you ordered a glass, the server is determining what?
A. To see how much of the wine you would like poured
B. To see if it’s what you ordered
C. To determine if you like it
D. To see if you think there’s something wrong with it
3. The nautical ship term for gross tonnage came from:
A. drinking games
B. containers of wine
C. toast eaten with wine
D. number of hungover sailors
4. A “Kattabos” is a what?
A. A Greek drinking game
B. A type of Greek grape
C. A type of vine training system
D. A two-handled bowl that held wine
5. “Amphora” is a Greco-Roman word, although amphoras were used centuries earlier by the:
A. Turks
B. Egyptians
C. Celtics
D. Americans
Art of the Week
(normally I choose a painting but this is so cool)
This piece is a bowl called Terracotta Kylix also known as Kattabos Player from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The bowl is about 7 ½” in diameter. It dates to about 500 B.C.E. If you watch a video about how to play kattabos, the artist exemplifies the player. When I fling wine out of my glass, it’s because I don’t like it. But here, it’s a game. The really cool attribute about creating terracotta art is that the painter isn’t painting the image. The artist paints the negative space and the image is left untouched with the natural color of the terracotta as the image.
Movie of the week
Mamma Mia! (with Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters and Stellan Skarsgard)
It is set in Greece and is just beautiful. But the scene with the song Take a Chance on Me, is absolutely hilarious. It’s funny how everyone grabs the bottles of wine off the tables but leaves the plates and glasses from the table dancing. I do believe in Carpe diem. Seize the Day! Enjoy every moment!
I love the tradition of the Greeks breaking a plate. The ritual signals an end and a beginning of something. Ancient Greeks would hide a wish under a plate. If that plate was broken, it meant that their wish would come true. The sound of the plate breaking was also said to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune. The more noise you make, the better your fortune. In the case of a wedding, the more fertile. After the plate is broken, people say, “Opa,” which means enthusiasm. There’s a term kefi, which means a way of life, and that emotions should be expressed with enthusiasm. The Greek government, possibly out of fear of running out of the good Chinaware, outlawed the breaking of breaks intentionally in 1969. That didn’t work out too well and people still broke plates. Imagine that. Safe Clay plates were invented that were cheap recyclable plates for the purpose of breaking plates that were not as dangerous as glass and biodegradable. Recycle the broken clay in Greece funds the charities there, so you can finally feel good about breaking a plate.
Play of the week:
Richard III, by William Shakespeare
In Act I, Scene IV, Richard is a terrible villain who is plotting for the throne. Richard has convinced his brother, King Edward IV of their brother’s treason. Edward has sentenced their brother, George, Duke of Clarence to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.
Song of the week:
Red Wine, Mistakes, Mythology by Jack Johnson (2010)
“You can feel it and dream it
I know you want to believe it.
Just steel it.
Take a piece of the sun
And drink some
Red wine, mistakes and apologies.”
Poem of the Day
In Praise of Wine
By Joseph Hilaire Belloc (1860-1953)
(This is only half of the poem)
To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,
To welcome home mankind’s mysterious friend
Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;
Wine, privilege of the completely free;
Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;
Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,
Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!
Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came,
And on his front the little dancing flame
Which marked the God-head. Sing the Panther-team,
The gilded Thrysus twirling, and the gleam
Of cymbals through the darkness. Sing the drums.
He comes; the young renewer of Hellas comes!
The Seas await him. Those Aegean Seas
Roll from the dawning, ponderous, ill at ease,
In lifts of lead, whose cresting hardly breaks
To ghostly foam, when suddenly there awakes
A mountain glory inland. All the skies
Are luminous; and amid the sea bird cries
The mariner hears a morning breeze arise.
Then goes the Pageant forward. The sea-way
Silvers the feet of that august array
Trailing above the waters, through the airs;
And as they pass a wind before them bears
The quickening word, the influence magical.
The Islands have received it, marble-tall;
The long shores of the mainland. Something fills
The warm Euboean combes, the sacred hills
Of Aulis and of Argos. Still they move
Touching the City walls, the Temple grove,
Till, far upon the horizon-glint, a gleam
Of light, of trembling light, revealed they seem
Turned to a cloud, but to a cloud that shines,
And everywhere as they pass, the Vines! The Vines!
The Vines, the conquering Vines! And the Vine breaths
Her savour through the upland, empty heaths
Of treeless wastes; the Vines have come to where
The dark Pelasgian steep defends the lair
Of the wolf’s hiding; to the empty fields
By Aufidus, the dry campaign that yields
No harvest for the husbandman, but now
Shall bear a nobler foison than the plough;
To where, festooned along the tall elm trees,
Tendrils are mirrored in Tyrrhenian seas;
To where the South awaits them; even to where
Stark, African informed of burning air,
Upturned to Heaven the broad Hipponian plain
Extends luxurious and invites the main.
Guelma’s a mother: barren Thaspsa breeds;
And northward in the valleys, next the meads
That sleep by misty river banks, the Vines
Have struck to spread below the solemn pines.
The Vines are on the roof-trees. All the Shrines
And Homes of men are consecrate with Vines.
And now the task of that triumphant day
Has reached to victory. In the reddening ray
With all his train, from hard Iberian lands
Fulfilled, apparent, that Creator stands
Halted on Atlas. Far Beneath him, far,
The strength of Ocean darkening and the star
Beyond all shores. There is a silence made.
It glorifies: and the gigantic shade
Of Hercules adores him from the West.
Dead Lucre: burnt Ambition: Wine is best.
- A. Dionysis
- D. To see if you think there’s something wrong with it
- B. containers of wine. A 252 gallon cask barrel was called a tun. 126 gallon cask was called a butt of wine. In the 1300’s, a tun was a unit of measuring wine, honey or oil. (In Old English it was called tunne and in Latin tunellus). Ships were categorized as to how many tuns or butts they could hold. “Gross tonnage” can be traced back to the amount of Claret the British were importing from France. Harbor dues were based on tonnage. The Moorsom System, which was adopted in 1854, calculated volume and not weight, became an international system of measurement.
I like big butts and I cannot lie…
- A. A Greek drinking game (look up how to play for your next bridal shower game)
- B. Egyptians (if you said Americans, you have trouble with history and possibly math and music). Archeologists found that King Tutankhamun’s tomb held 26 amphoras (containing both red and white from 15 different vintners). These were often lined with pine and bees wax and easy to transport, pour and easy to produce. They had long necks, to reduce the amount of surface area that would be exposed to oxygen. They were tapered at the bottom to allow sediment to collect and be easier to partially bury for storage. The taper also helped limit movement of the wine for travelling. They had two handles to easily be held and moved. The word amphora is derived from amphi, which means, on both sides and phoreus, meaning to carry.
