Wine and religion.

 

August is approaching, a month traditionally associated with vacations, the beach and also very frequent and special for “our” emigrants to return for a few days to their homeland, their village, and join their people.

 

 

We remember this theme mainly because we have just launched a wine that was served at the table of Pope Francis during his last visit to Portugal, the white wine EMINÊNCIA 2013.

 

 

It's also a tribute to our many emigrants who work and live all over the world, and this year, due to the current situation, they won't be able to return to Portugal, and many of them, being Catholics, won't be able to make their usual pilgrimages.

 

 

XPTO

 

In Portugal, this expression is used on many occasions, for example, I have an XPTO smartphone or my father has an XPTO car, in short, as a way of highlighting the differentiating factor of the good in question.

 

 

 

However, the truth is that the origin of the expression XPTO is intrinsically related to the Catholic Church, namely to Mass wines or Lacrima Christi.

Yes, the expression XPTO was once used, in its written form, on the barrels of wine that were prepared and supplied especially for the Church, to be used in the middle of Mass. If you want to know more about this detail, click on the article on the www.clubevinhosportugueses.pt portal, and see and review it by clicking here.

 

 

In fact, wine is an ancient drink, known and consumed by humankind for centuries, and its relationship with religion is so natural that it's even forgotten.

 

 

That's why we'd like to share a curiosity with you. As we've already mentioned a wine from the Vinho Verde region in our portfolio of Portuguese wines, we also have another wine with a Hebrew certification, or rather a Kosher certification.

 

 

A KOSHER certification is a way of certifying that the products manufactured by a particular company comply with the specific rules governing the Orthodox Jewish diet.

 

 

In this sense, madeinportucale.com has a wine with this certification, namely Félix Rocha - Kosher Red Wine 2010, from the Lisbon Region.

 

 

In short, wine is present in various religious rituals, not all of them, even some religions (e.g. Islam) prevent its consumption, which obviously has to be respected, but we have at least identified two religions.

In Christianity, it represents the blood of Jesus, while in Judaism, it is a constant presence in the Old Testament (of the entire Bible, only the Book of Jonah makes no mention of wine) and, according to the followers of Moses, the first vision of what would be the “Promised Land” was a bunch of grapes.

 

Wine is perhaps the drink that most represents Christianity, being a symbol of various elements that are linked to Jesus' journey on Earth, so for us at Made in Portucale it is yet another example that we are dealing with a very special drink, regardless of our individual beliefs.

 

[30/07/2020]