VINALIA

See HERE

Wiki tells that on August 19 the people of ancient Rome and its surrounding rural area celebrated Vinalia, one of two annual wine festivals.






From Ancient history, about.com

April 23, according to the William Smith Dictionary, on Lacus Curtius, was the urban Roman wine festival, Vinalia urbana, at which occasion wine casks were first opened and tasted, with a libation poured to Jupiter. Not just Rome, but all of Latium celebrated the 2nd wine festival, the Vinalia rustica on August 19, when the flamen dialis offered lambs to Jupiter and then opened the vintage for drinking.

I'm not much of a wine drinker myself, most of the dry varieties tend to leave me with stomach pains, red wines give me a nasty headache. A mild semi- sweet Moscato or Liebfraumilch is about my limit. Still, to stay in tune with Vinalia and Music Monday, a couple of wine songs and a quote from a favourite philosopher:

First, Days of Wine and Roses composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, from a 1962 film of the same name. A less well-known tidbit: the song's lyrics were derived from a poem by English poet and novelist Ernest Dowson - a tragic guy, worthy of a blog post all to himself, died aged 32 of alcoholism. His poem Vitae Summa Brevis, in turn is an echo of another man's words - from ancient Rome: "The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long" –Horace.

Vitae Summa Brevis by Ernest Dowson

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

See HERE.

The song, sung by the incomparable Ella:





Then there's Red Red Wine - written and sung here by Neil Diamond - the original version:




Finally, from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of of The Rubaiyat some of Omar Khayyám's words:

And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End!