TABLE OF CONTENTS Issues around religion, fertility and status are some of the most visible symbolic meanings attached to wine. Less obvious historically, but of equal significance, is the fact that wine is often viewed albeit unconsciously as a key part of a civilized life; in modern terminology, it has become a 'lifestyle product'. This chapter will investigate this phenomenon, looking at what it means to be civilized, and then how wine takes on the trappings of civilization in the pursuit of knowledge, the fact that it is natural, that its consumption is perceived to indicate sophistication and that it may be an art form. The context of wine as a civilized drink is then examined specifically its relationship to philosophy and the arts, to food and to lifestyle.
The idea that wine forms part of a 'civilized life' may seem unexpected in an academic study on the social context of wine. However, it is important for a number of reasons. The first is that one of the major symbolic uses of wine is to communicate messages about the sophistication and culture of an individual or community. This is certainly one way in which it is treated by artists, for wine often appears in paintings, music or literature (as in the Lord Peter Wimsey story in Chapter 8) to convey such a meaning although, as we shall see, the metaphorical use of wine may be more ambivalent than that. This idea that wine has become a symbol...
