Wine in the Arts & Letters

Apart from the material culture it contributed to, wine, in its role as agricultural product, merchandise, beverage, food, medicament, and everyday pleasure, was destined to become the driving force behind Greece’s intellectual life as well. Wine in Greece was deified and worshipped: it was turned into myth; legend; lore; history; art; science; and culture, coming to interweave itself into Greece’s intellectual life and, together with arts & letters, form the ideal triptych of wine in the Arts & Letters. Ancient poets such as Homer and Hesiod; writers such as Herodotus and Xenophon; philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; playwrights of tragedy and comedy, thinkers and intellectuals, doctors and artists, the entire intellectual domain of Greece touted and hailed and cited wine, all the while advocating the concept of measure, known today as the concept of wine in moderation.

Wine in the Arts & Letters was in the core of Greek Classical culture with wine being the decisive influence on the other two. Greek philosophy, world-famous today, took shape and form through the discussions of men of intellect at the ancient Greek symposia. The theater, comedy and tragedy alike, rose out of the Dionysian celebrations. Fields of the Arts & Letters such as literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, ceramics, pottery craftsmanship, and metallurgy drew inspiration from wine, bequeathing on humankind unsurpassed masterpieces.
from: http://www.newwinesofgreece.com