Sacred Wine

With Christmas just around the corner, you might want to check out a new title by esteemed author Emily Stimpson Chapman that would be especially appropriate for the wine enthusiast in your life.

Sacred Wine: The Holy History and Heritage of Catholic Vintners is a new coffee table book that is an absolute delight to read and ponder. The book contains breathtakingly beautiful photos of vineyards in Italy, France, and Spain. But this is more than just a picture book for adults with an affinity for adult beverages.

The book also offers an important historical record of wineries, monasteries, and the connections between the two.

Chapman's writing is as effervescent as a sparkling wine and contains some powerful truths. For instance, she notes that, in the New Testament, "wine becomes something far more than a sign of God's blessing. It becomes blessing. It becomes grace. It becomes Blood. It becomes Jesus Himself, with every drop of wine transfigured in the Liturgy of the New Covenant--the Holy Mass--containing a fullness of the Lord's Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity."

Even though I am a teetotaler, I found Sacred Wine to be quite captivating and just what I needed to read on a crisp autumn afternoon.