Drinking Wine With Homer

Through the Homeric hymns and the epic stories of Western antiquity such as The Illiad and The Odyssey we know that the practice of using language (rhetoric) to describe the various qualities of wine and rate different wines stretches back thousands of years since ancient Greece.  The finest wines or a wine that was “much asked for” was called exaitos and exemplary wines—those varietals considered fit for the gods (a rare vintage, something “out of this world” or otherwise “divine”)—was labeled theios. 

Hence, the cultural practice of labeling, branding, and ranking a bottle of wine is as old wine itself.  We continue that cultural practice today using the rhetoric of description, tropes, and imagery to construct the identity of different wines and wineries, to document the features of different wines, and to induce (if not seduce and ultimately persuade) consumers “to trot on down” to the local wine shop and buy a bottle.