Wine for Thought

I’m not a traditional Jew.

My parents were mixed (one Jewish, one Catholic) and my upbringing was secular — more intellectual than religious. I do not observe the eight days of Passover or go to Shul. But I believe in Yom Kippur, which began at sundown last night and extends until this evening.

This is the day of atonement. And while I neither fast nor abstain from the other prohibited activities (bathing, wearing leather shoes, anointing one’s body with perfume, and engaging in marital relations), I do think about guilt, responsibility, and repentance. I try to let go of old grudges and right whatever wrongs I have committed. The list is long. . . .

On it are several things I’d like to forget: a particularly divisive conversation with my sister; an old friend ill, frustrated, and mired in anger; a mentor whom I no longer trust. It’s thorny, this business of trying to figure out where the truth lies — which grievances to forgive and which to hold onto because they make one aware.

And while thinking about all this last night, I drank a Minervois — the Abbaye de Tholomies 2004 — by the light of our sabbath candles. This is a wine I tried by chance and grew to love in a wary way. Every bottle is different: some fruity, some leathery, some astringent and dry. This last was full of saddle and plum. Cigar box, chalky soil, and ancient trees. It tasted to me the way musty oaken library stacks smell. An excellent wine for thinking by.

The label shows three men, intellectuals by appearance, deep in discussion over glasses of their own. And the wine’s history goes deep as well. Abbayes de Tholomies was a monastery founded in 990 A.D. The monks grew wine grapes until the Inquisition, when their home — a refuge for heretics — was destroyed. In 1981, a dental surgeon named Lucien Roge bought the property and resumed winemaking there. Roge adheres to Ben Franklin-like philosophies: growing is coordinated with “biodynamic” law, such as the phases of the moon and stars. And he uses no chemicals on his crops.

This is not a wine for light occasions, afternoon barbecues or quick drinks with colleagues or casual friends. It is, however, perfect for those solemn moments when you are deep in thought. I like to imagine wisdom coming from that soil, from those monks, from the ruins of an abbey lying in pieces under the ground.