Monks and Wine
By Desmond Seward
For well over a thousand years almost all the biggest and best vineyards were owned and cultivated by monks.
To a large extent, it was the monastic orders that saved viticulture when barbarian invasions destroyed the Roman Empire. Though the monasteries lost most of their vineyards in the revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, monks are still active and often distinguished wine-makers in many parts of the world. Extraordinarily, this story has never been properly told until now.
Monasteries had a natural interest in wine, for they needed a supply for Mass – as did the surrounding churches. But monastic wine-making at its best went far beyond the daily needs of small communities, both in quality and in quantity. Monastic wines include such great burgundies as Chamberlin and Clos de Vougeot. Bordeaux wines such as Château la Mission-Haut-Brion and Château Carbonnieux, and German wines such as Johannisberger and Hattenheimer.
Wines are of course the focus of this charming book, but Desmond Seward also describes in a separate chapter the enormous contribution monks have made to liqueurs and eaux-de-vie – for example, the first distiller of Scotch whisky known by name was a friar.
Monks and Wine is a personal and detailed work which describes the monasteries themselves and provides an anecdotal history of the orders.
