I am reading the most wonderful book on wine, Terry Theise's
Reading Between the Wines. As I mentioned earlier in a recent post, spirituality, when you look out for it, pops up in the most unexpected places.
My intention is not to do a book review but just to share with you some of the ideas that have come to mind since starting to read the book. Terry talks about connectedness, of listening to what the wine has to say or is trying to express, of the way wine will make anyone who tries to tame the subject quite modest, of the links between nature and wine, and more...
Reading this got me thinking about how wine is also a vessel for a lot of "here and now" type meditation. When you taste a glass of wine, or rather when you stop to taste a glass of wine, you put everything else aside and concentrate all of your senses on the task at hand. One-pointedness, total concentration, listening to what messages your senses are sending you... sounds a bit like zen meditation to me.
The book is just wonderful and anyone who even slightly enjoys wine would love to read it. I learned a lot and have enjoyed it quite a bit on a lot of different levels (personal anecdotes, language, travel stories, ...).
Plus anyone that quotes Ouspensky's Tertium Organum in a book on wine can't be all bad : )
