Enoteca Italiana

A Natural Drink

Unlike grapes, wheat and olives, neither wine, bread or olive oil can be found in nature; they are the products of men. Powerful symbols of ancient civilization, they have been enriched over millennia to achieve extremely high levels of quality.
Wine was a ritual drink in ancient times, and Christianity endowed it with great symbolic meaning. Christ, anointed by God, broke bread and drank wine. Noah took into the Ark not only all of the animal species but also vine shoots, not because he was a hedonist, but because at that time man gazed at the starry heavens yearningly, sure he had descended from them, and wine, blood of the earth, rooted him to our planet. Noah drank his wine to get drunk on earth.

In the name of tradition, taken in its strictest sense, many wines have been made for centuries without improvement. Early on, quality was seldom a priority. Wine was considered a nutritive, a source of calories to put on the table along with bread, a "stomach-filler" rather than a luxury. Neither was any thought given to which wines should accompany which meals. White wine was consumed with any dish, even meat; likewise, red was consumed with simple and delicate foods. In the last decades of the 20th century, however, while wine consumption declined, wine quality increased. People started drinking less wine but of better quality, because the status of wine was elevated from a nutritive to a source of pleasure. Nowadays, people enjoy a glass of wine for its mellow and fruity taste, not because it's a source of energy. This trend has changed wine's image. As late as the seventies, drinking wine did not in itself denote an elegant lifestyle, but today a prestigious bottle adds luster and a touch of the cosmopolitan to both buyer and seller. It has also been discovered that, consumed regularly and in moderation, wine is good for one’s health thanks to substances like resveratrol, which lowers cholesterol levels. The consumer has become more knowledgeable over the years. Attention to what one drinks (and eats) has become a widespread trend, and the value of wine has been reassessed. In this context, the laws that since the seventies have been regulating Italian wine production, have helped to educate the consumer.