But no relishing or savouring wine with us, Cicero said. We don’t linger over our wine. We don’t appreciate it. Of course not! We know nothing of the rituals of social drinking. Of the ceremonies of wine.
Cicero brought out her wine only at the very end of the evening. Only in those early hours, when we were back in her flat.
Desecration time! she used to say. Let’s see what you can do to my wine.
Cicero, bringing her wines to us with reverence – of the irony. Cicero, dusting each bottle off. Uncorking it slowly, gratefully. Pouring it ceremoniously. For us! She was doing it for us! She appreciated the irony, she said.
Cicero, extolling the length of the taste, not that we’d understand any of that. Cicero, taking us through the unfolding sequence of flavours, and she might as well have been addressing apes.
Cicero, swirling her wine. Sniffing it. Commenting upon it. Wine is about gentle sipping, she said, as we guzzled ours.
But no relishing or savouring wine with us, Cicero said. We don’t linger over our wine. We don’t appreciate it. Of course not! We know nothing of the rituals of social drinking. Of the ceremonies of wine.
The wine’s rising up to meet us, in the glass, Cicero said. Even you! It’s rising up to meet you!
We’re bingers! Wine destroyers!
We’re vicious drinkers – we make a vice of drinking. We’re desecrators.
Nothing virtuous about our drinking! No moderate exercise of an appetite! Not a stimulus to educated conversation! No reminder that life is a blessing! No cultivation of virtue!
Politeness! Manners! Amicable company! We knew nothing of that when we were drinking her wine.
Work in Progress 