Sacred Wine: The Holy History and Heritage of Catholic Vintners

The book you’re holding in your hand tells the stories of 12 wineries in Italy, France, and Spain whose existences have been shaped by the Catholic Faith. Most of the wineries began as monasteries. A few still are. Walk the land where the grapes were grown, hear the stories told about it in the cellars where the bottles age, and pray in the Churches where the men and women who first grew the grapes once prayed … or still do pray. In each, the history first written by the Benedictines, Cistercians, Carthusians, Franciscans, and more, lives on.  It’s good to drink these wines and know you’re drinking part of the Church’s history and (in some cases) even supporting that history as it continues to unfold.

This book aims to give you the stories behind the wineries through introductions to the orders or saints that established them, pictures of the rules of life that informed their work, and accounts of the secular history which shaped the wineries’ history, as well as introduce you to a few of the wines being made in each winery today. Also, as much as possible, it will provide you with some of the information necessary to visit the wineries, taste their wine, and buy a bottle or two.

May you remember what, by God’s grace, every drop of wine has the potential to become: Life itself, the Blood of the One who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”