The
Ritual
The Way of Wine transcends the conventional tasting experience: it's a ceremonial. A ritual. Here you'll find an overview of its Prelude and of the nine Movements that together constitute this wine experience like no other.
Inside the Antechamber
Before being led, one by one, into the ceremonial enclosure and directed to their seats, guests gather in the antechamber. We request that participants arrive an hour before the ceremony begins, preferably with an empty stomach. Spring water is served, and the guests are given a few simple instructions about the way the celebration will unfold.
Begin your initiatory journey
Pre-Time
Prelude
The absence of light
Obscuritas
In the hollows of our bodies shrouded by the darkest hour of the night, we are given the opportunity to perceive and feel more intensely our inner world. Just try to be fully present to this moment, leaving behind all preconceived ideas, all expectations..., and while acknowledging that you do not know what will follow, open yourself to the mysterious beauty of this moment of silence until… from all around and from within, an immemorial murmur arises, making the world resonate...
First Movement
Act I
The return of clarity
Nitere
Out of the night comes the chant of a crystalline voice. It’s a call. The first call. Suddenly, a quivering light breaks the darkness. A human figure steps forward; candlestick in hand, the Wine Master approaches quietly. The light he carries is enough to lift the veil of uncertainty that covers the world and things.
Eyes discern three monolithic entities, which set the scene of the ceremonial enclosure. The first one is petravinum, on which the wine that will be served to the guests’ rests in its “body of glass” from which the cork, previously removed, now offers the wine a passage towards the possibility of a new form; the second entity is called tolmen, the table of ablutions; and finally, we discover altarium, a promontory stone bearing the Vascellum, a piece acting as the center of gravity of the entire space, creating a sacred field inside which the guests are gathered. The Vascellum is the Way of Wine Ritual’s cardinal and indispensable entity; a true animated vessel that allows the wine to travel from its bottle to the Amphora, a carafe that is discovered placed on its pedestal, called a pedem. The Wine Master will now retreat into himself, but not before the light has been multiplied four times to become five.
Second Movement
Act I
The end of appearances
Ablutio
For the second time echoes the crystal-clear chant, summoning the Wine Master to tolmen. In the mirror of the still waters that fills the monolith's basin, gaze the Wine Master. He sees the theatrical mask his face has become, the one he wears for the part he plays in human society, and under which hides his true self, barely breathing. Then, in the basin he dips his hands, breaking this image of himself before sprinkling water on his face to cleanse it of its appearance. Now, bereft of his social veneer, the celebrant shall proceed, his true self now freed…
Third Movement
Act I
The knowledge
Mensura
For a third time the calling chant will resound in the ceremonial enclosure. The Wine Master is summoned to petravinum. Arriving at the monolith in which rests the wine for the celebration, he will place both hands on its bottle, proceeding from the base to the neck, to take the full measure of it. The Master of Wine then proceeds to tolmen from which surface are pointing the cristallus, translucent pieces varying in length used to immobilize the bottle on the Vascellum’s matris according to its singular dimension. Then, from the knowledge acquired from his hands, the Wine Master will draw the right cristallus for its insertion in the florem, the unit used to tighten the bottle on the rear part of the matris.
Fourth Movement
Act I
The lift
Portare
One last time, the crystalline chant calls the Wine Master, who returns to petravinum. From the monolith, he delicately retrieves the bottle of wine, which he presents to the guests during a passage with slow steps, before turning to atlarium and the Vascellum. Each step of the Wine Master is then followed by a pause, whose duration stretches with each stride. In front of the Vascellum, the Celebrant stops. And like a dancer lifting his partner in a final carry, he will raise the bottle to the level of the matris, the upper limb hosting the bottle, and deposit it there by constraining it from the front after its insertion in the vagina*, the translucent frontal organ of the Vascellum, so emblamatic of its anatomy.
The bottle is now enshrined in its vessel, and the wine ready for its ultimate journey, ready to be released from its cocoon of glass to take its next form... For the moment, the Wine Master will leave the visible scene, as he needs a moment of solitude to gather the vital energy he will require to accomplish the next movement of the Ritual: versare...
* Go to the Leksikon to discover why the surprising word of vagina was chosen to designate the Vascellum’s figurehead.
Fifth Movement
Act II
The golden release
Versare
A new chant rings out in the ceremonial enclosure. The Wine Master reappears. And now begins the final walk leading to the Vascellum. As he walks, the Wine Master retrieves the amphora sitting on its pedem. The celebrant moves slowly. Sacred moments call for a sacred slowness. At the Vascellum, holding the amphora in one hand, and also holding his breath, the Wine Master operates Vascellum’s living heart: heorte, whose motion causes the matris and the bottle held within it, to tilt. Seconds later, the wine meets the light of day, losing its bottle-shape as it escapes, and taking that of a free-flowing stream exhaling its scent, which, the moment it is collected into the amphora, begins to take that shape. As it lingers in the moment of pouring, the wine takes this triple form, as beautiful as it is ephemeral: bottle, stream, and amphora. Once the wine has been poured, the Wine Master lifts the matris again, collecting the last few drops. And then, facing the guests, he lifts the amphora with both hands, and replaces it on its pedem. Before returning for the seventh time in the ceremony enclosure, the Wine Master disappears from view one last time.
Sixth Movement
Act II
The sharing
Partire
With the amphora now full, the wine master pours a portion of the precious liquid into each of the glasses placed on a pedestal called a vitrum. In addition to each guest's glass, the vitrum contains two extra glasses: one for the wine master, and one for the sommelier-officiant, who enters the ceremonial enclosure.
The noble task of the sommelier-officiant is to taste the wine to ensure its quality, then place the glasses on the guests' pedems. In front of each guest now stands a shared portion of wine which, at the promised moment of tasting, will unite them. But the time for drinking the wine has not yet come...
Seventh Movement
Act III
Passing on the inner fire
Transmissio
The Wine Master returns. He approaches the seat of the first guest, carrying an altar candle. Standing before the guest, he grounds himself, closing his eyes for a second before opening them to look straight into the eyes of the guest. He lingers for a moment in the glow of the candle’s light, searching for the being below the surface. Then, descending on one knee, he takes his candle and lights the candle on the guest’s pedem. He repeats the action for each guest, transmitting his flame, which multiplies as many times over as the number of guests. Once his task is completed, he joins the small group of guests, and takes the only vacant seat. Since the ceremony began, no word has been spoken. The only sound inside the ceremonial enclosure has been music, and this will remain continue until the ritual ends. The time to drink the wine has come.
Eighth Movement
Act III
The great metamorphosis
Transmutatio
A new chant rings out in the ceremonial enclosure. Having joined the community of guests, the Wine Master lifts his glass high, indicating that it is time to drink the wine. In silence, the guests then take all the time needed to drink their wine. In the act of tasting, guests allow the wine’s power to act in their bodies, spreading through them with the alcohol’s heat, its smells and tastes. True to the spirit of the Way of Wine, guests are invited to drink their elixir without analyzing their felt sensations, but embracing the sensations and staying in the lived experience of their feelings, in the pure motion that inhabits them, without trying to evade it. Surrendering to the moment, they have an opportunity to taste the moment when words lose their power to describe.
From one form to another, from the shape of the bottle to the one of its moment of flow, to the amphora and then to the glass, the wine in our body finally transforms itself. Breaking down into all the forms it has always been, the ones before the bottle, when wine was still earth, water and sun, and even before, in the distant past, when its essence existed as potential at a point outside of time, at the very origins of the universe, this same point of infinity when we, too, were wine.
Ninth Movement (or Time-Zero)
Act III
The renewal
Regeneratio
As the guests conclude their tasting, they rest their empty glasses on their pedem. And as the mysterious power of wine flows through them, they let the calmness invade them, communing in silence with the other guests, savoring this moment of full awareness.
As the last glass of wine rests on his pedem, the opertura, the large circular opening of the ceremonial enclosure, begins to light up. When he feels the moment has come, the Wine Master rises from his seat and slowly moves towards the opertura, to cross its threshold. Each guest then rises to cross the opertura at the moment he or she senses it, taking all the time necessary, and without feeling jostled by those preceding him or her.
At this time, the guests are invited to a cocktail, where they can share their experiences while enjoying wines and delicacies. This moment in their lives will forever bind them all.
The Way of Wine reminds us that life itself is a never-ending cycle. It invites us to embrace new experiences that give life its full richness, and to find the deepest truths of existence in the very beauty of the journey.
