Sending Wine Home

I wasn’t supposed to marry him. I was brought up right. I was raised in a good Southern Baptist Church. Went every week and was very active. I knew my Bible. I prayed. I was a deeply spiritual person. Very moral and wise. My parents did very good work bringing me up well so I didn’t ever feel the need to rebel.

He, on top of many other risky things, was Catholic. A party boy Catholic. I knew the Catholics were evil. They prayed to Mary and had statues in their churches. They weren’t real Christians.

But, he was heavenly. I was freshly out from Mom and Dad’s control and my time in a conservative college had left me a little miffed on the truth of the bubble. My bubble vacated my spirit during my study abroad time in Europe. Seeing the world and experiencing life outside of a southern small town shifted a lot for me. I was lucky my little church wasn’t too closed minded and had lots of college educated professionals but being in Europe with cathedrals and wine shifted my soul into a new level of life.

He was too magnetizing and so in a moment of impulse and grandiose love, I married him. I knew I was diving into the wrong waters but I figured I could make it work. With little kids that needed weekly church, though….things became complex. I tried to raise them up in familiar ways but, as an adult in church, the reality of what really happens in small town cliques of the church folk soon descended me into painful frustration.

I church hopped and shopped for months. Trying to find a place where my little kids and myself could call home even though Dad was not a church going guy. His roots in Catholicism upbringing, like most cradle Catholics, kept him far away from the modern Catholic Church. He spent the Sunday mornings taking the trash and cutting grass. He thought it was good for kids to go to but he had already checked that box in life and saw no need to put himself in the murky waters of local church dynamics.

Turns out, he was an incredible father and husband. Watching the men I run into at church, I am still thankful to this day that I did the rebellious thing.

Completely exasperated, one day I decided to try mass with the kids by myself. That morning, the priest spoke on really interesting history topics. His speech (sermon, homily) was so good, I was intrigued. He wasn’t like other preachers and I loved the level of historical information he pulled together. I was pretty well read now as an adult and could see that he was like going to a college lecture. I figured I would go ahead and take the kids there every week just so I could enjoy his study.

I would soon learn that the catholics are just as tough as my other protestant friends. Human is consistent across all things. When you deal with people, you deal with a lot. The Church is a hospital, not a college lecture hall. But, I was able to really gain so much from my intellectual studies of the history of the Church. Many of the writings were so inspiring and it helped me understand the philosophy of theology so much deeper.

One of the most interesting things I learned was the divisions within the Catholic Church. Just like the political divisions in the country, the Church has these divisions of thought. I had assumed they were one mindset.

But, no.

There is this internal war constantly ongoing. That was fascinating to see.

At one point in history, the internal war was so much, the Pope moved locations. He moved the papacy down to Avignon, France instead of Rome, Italy. That specific region is called Chateauneuf du Pape.

The Castle of the Pope.

A few years later, enough past my deep study of the Catholic Church that I could breathe well again, and now into my intense work into wine, I saw that place on the page and was intrigued. I had never heard of that. Almost immediately, a few days past my quick read up on CdP, Boris Johnson had mentioned it in a speech in England that was broadcast in America and trended enough on social media that it came up on my feed. This was the moment I realized this wine region was something globally understood. This wine was considered cream of the crop. Only the elite drink it, apparently. You are really something if you are having a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape.

Challenge accepted. I would find a CdP and see what I thought.

I came home that Saturday evening after a day filled with soccer games and tennis lessons to a man that had a spiritual moment in the woods earlier that day. He was so moved while out hunting that he looked at me and asked to join us for evening mass. I was floored.

So, we gathered everyone up and went over to sit in the candlelight with prayers and chant washing over us. There was no need to worry about the other people in the room, we were there to just experience the complex, invisible unknown. No intense study or debate was needed to get to the bottom of who was right or wrong on church matters. The church was a sliver of the full reality. Infinite love was the victor. Something about experiencing the work that all the charitable people put into making everything perfectly peaceful so that someone with an open heart can just be and connect to an unexplainable center was the deepest philosophy that needed no textbook or lecture notes.

I really don’t need to write for you all the details of my tasting notes. And to say how good this bottle of wine was seems trite and might ruin your experience if you go in with expectations too high.

I will say this. You have to drink a CdP at least once in your life. It truly was a wonderful thing to enjoy. From the first moment in the glass, one realizes you don’t need explanations.

You get it.