In classic Francis form, he
ad-libbed the better part of the lesson, explaining that at a certain
point in the celebration the wine ran dry. “How is it possible to
celebrate the wedding and have a party if you lack what the prophets
indicated was a typical element of the messianic banquet?” he asked the
crowd.
“Water is
necessary to live, but wine expresses the abundance of the feast and the
joy of the celebration. And a wedding party which lacks wine—the
newlyweds feel ashamed of this. Imagine finishing a wedding party
drinking tea—it would be shameful! There is no celebration without
wine!”
And who can argue with that?
Apparently, the Catholic Church does practice what it preaches. Vatican City,
with a population of just 842 people, has the highest per capita wine
consumption in the world, according to the California Wine Institute, an
American organization that tracks such trends. They found that each
Vatican City resident consumes an average of 74 liters of wine annually,
which is twice the per capita consumption in the rest of Italy and
seven times the per capita consumption in the United States.
One might automatically
assume that the reason for the high quantity of consumption is surely
the wine used at holy mass, but the so-called sacramental wine isn’t
even part of the equation, according to the Wine Institute. Wine used in
mass can be red or white, sweet or dry, but it must be fermented
naturally from grapes and not mixed with anything else, which is why the
Vatican orders it from a special distributor.
An
assistant to Monsignor Jose Avelino Bettencourt, who heads the
Vatican’s protocol office, told The Daily Beast that wine used in
sacramental ceremonies inside the Vatican city state is not ‘house wine’
or bottled wine, but rather comes in vats that are doled out as
necessary, and therefore does not figure into the per capita
consumption. “Altar wine and table wine are two different things,” he
said. “Sacramental wine is considered holy, table wine is of a different
variety.”
The most
logical reason for the Vatican’s high consumption of wine is likely
demographics. Among those who live inside the fortification walls are
families and the population is mostly made of up ageing prelates and
nuns, many of whom live communally and dine in mess halls where wine
flows freely—quite literally. Wine is one of the most common gifts to
the pope, with several vineyards printing special labels and sending
cases of various vintages to the Vatican so they can claim the pope
drinks their wine, which he regularly shares with Vatican City
inhabitants.
Pope
Francis’s own grandfather Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio was a winemaker from
the Piedmont area of northern Italy, and he was known for making sweet
Grignolino wine, which Francis (as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio)
regularly had sent to Argentina. He has also blessed winemakers and his
given several private audiences to producers and sommeliers at the
Vatican. And when Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi first visited
Francis, he brought a selection of Tuscan dessert wines that the pope
was said to appreciate.
Bodegas Heras-Cordon, a Rioja Alta winery from Spain, started gifting wine
to the Vatican under John Paul II. Now they produce a vintage with the
papal seal on it they claim Francis orders and say it is one of his
favorite sips.
American
winemakers Tim and Steph Busch of Trinita Cellars also make special
papal wine that sells for $75 a bottle. In 2014, at their second
audience with the pope as part of his blessing of winemakers, they
presented the pontiff with bottles of Cabernet FRANCis, a wine named
after him, for which he thanked them and then said, “Your wine is augmenting the pope’s vices.”
As
the Busch’s tell the story, the pope’s assistants later called the
couple to tell them how much the pope said he enjoyed the wine and asked
if they had more with them in Rome. They say they then scrambled and
called all the cardinals they had given bottles to and asked for them
back to give to the pope. The California couple also made a Zinfandel
wine for Pope Benedict XVI they called “RatZINger” and they produce a full list of religiously-inspired wines including “Psalms” and “Rose’ary.”
In the final analysis, of
course, it really doesn’t mean much that the Vatican is apparently full
of winos. “In vino, veritas, (In wine, truth),” as the Latin saying
goes, which may give a window into why the devout are such drinkers. Or,
perhaps a better quote came from Pope John XXIII, who also enjoyed a
glass of the good stuff. “Men are like wine,” he said. “Some turn to
vinegar, but the best improve with age.” The Daily Beast
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