Overview
We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. Whether or not good for the body, Scruton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts.
This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded.
In vino veritas.
Synopsis
The ancients had a solution to the alcohol problem: to wrap the drug in religious rituals, to treat it as the incarnation of a god and to marginalise disruptive behaviour. Gradually, under the discipline of ritual, prayer and theology, wine was tamed from its orgiastic origins to become a solemn libation to the Olympians and then the Christian Eucharist.
But today we are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health as well as the rival opinion that a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. In Roger Scruton's opinion, these health fascists have poisoned a natural enjoyment. Scruton argues that while wine is an excellent accompaniment to food, it is even better with philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn to drink in thoughts and think in draughts.
This is a good humoured book with many profound ideas at its core. In vino veritas.