Why in tasting wine there is a certain moral meaning that cheers the soul of a just man

Wine is more apt to a celebration than a banquet; because of all foods, bread is the most honest, but wine is the most honored and honorific.

There is a moving honesty in bread: “Give us this day our daily bread.” But in wine there is honor.

Sacred Scripture [1] says the wine in moderation cheers the heart of the just man. Precisely: in moderation, wines does good to a just man’s soul.

In many poets, literary writers we note the oft-repeated affirmation that wine produces, on human taste buds, a flavor that has a spiritual content. Of course they are praising wine. And haring this praise you could have recalled the bread, the most august Supper of all, where for the first time Our Lord Jesus Christ consecrated it and offered Himself.

It is obvious that bread and wine have such symbolism that in thesis one could not find more beautiful food to analyze.

Wines comes from grape and bread from wheat; there is in grape and in wheat something symbolic that one does not quite know what to say, but which everyone feels. When one hears for the first time that Our Lord Jesus Christ took the bread and consecrated it, took the wine and consecrated it, it is impossible not to feel, deep down, something as if saying: “How well chosen were wine and bread for this act!”

That means that in tasting, more notably of wine than other foods, there can be a certain symbolic meaning, a certain moral meaning that cheers the soul of man.

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By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Ps 103:15.