The Spirituality of Wine by Gisela Kreglinger

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Spirituality of Wine by Gisela Kreglinger Thomas McElligott The Spirituality of Wine. By Gisela Kreglinger. Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016. 257pp. $24.00 Is this some kind of joke? We know that drinking wine can lighten our spirits, but can it make us “spiritual”? Does the fermentation of grapes actually do more than make the drinker gently intoxicated? (98) Sommeliers often compare the taste of wine to fruits, vegetables, chocolates, and other foods—but to the spiritual? How would one taste the “spirituality” of a wine? [End Page 271] Kreglinger divides her study into two parts: “Sustenance” and “Sustainability.” She supports her argument for the spirituality of wine in the five chapters of the first section of her book by arguing that the spirituality of wine grows out of an understanding of the role of wine in the Bible, the history of the development of the use of wine in the life of Christians, the centrality of wine in the Eucharist, and the presence of wine at Christian festival days to enhance joy in celebration. Finally, she explores the important roles that the senses of taste and smell play in identifying those qualities in a well-crafted wine that invite a contemplation of wine as a gift of God’s creation (118). Kreglinger interprets her study of the multiple biblical references to wine and the history of the integration of wine in the life of Christians as an appreciation of all of life as being in “a profound relationship with God and in deep fellowship with God’s creation” (35). She appreciates the Lord’s Supper as the prayer that employs the mind, the senses, and the imagination to accept Christ’s redemptive presence in the bread and wine as “the fruit of the very earth that God made . . . and anchors our spirituality in creation” (67). Our five senses, Kreglinger states in the fifth chapter of Part One, are “an extravagant gift from God” (100). She describes how to use these senses to savor the flavors of a sip of well-crafted wine as it enters the mouth and awakens the palate. It “reveals to us something of God’s abundant generosity” and savoring it “can become a prayer” (110). Does prayer here mean thoughtfully partaking of a glass of wine in a kind of “mindfulness” in which the taster recalls the work of the vintner, the work of nature, and finally, God? She does not say. The “sustenance” of the spirituality of wine discussed in Part One depends upon the attentive taster who brings to the enjoyment of a glass of wine the biblical, historical, and sacramental connections of wine and human life. That seems to be a theological appreciation of wine. In fact, Kreglinger understands spirituality as “a strain of Christian theology”(1). The second part of Kreglinger’s argument, summarized below, shows how the vintner comes to the spirituality of wine through a careful dedication, almost devotion, to every aspect of the craft of the vintner. Kreglinger develops her argument in these final five chapters of Part Two, “Sustainability,” by introducing the reader to the kind of attention several vintners from Germany, France, and the United States pay to every aspect of the crafting of their wine. They regard their work as a vocation because every aspect of their work presents them with questions and challenges about how they need to live in relation to what they are doing (121). These vintners live the spirituality of wine because of the way their work transforms them. The German vintner Armin Störrlein described his work as “a cooperation with God’s creation” in which the wine he produces respects the God-given natural environment of the vineyard from which the resulting wine is a gift of God (133). Jason Lett, an Oregonian vintner, offered that the crafting of his wine brings him “a deep sense of the interconnectedness of life” (136). Russ Raney, another Oregonian vintner, understands “the land and the vine is a God-given mandate and calls him to a life of gratitude.” He conceives of the vintner as the responsible custodian of the land so that the wine that eventually...