Definition: wine at the table (role of)

Fortunately, this quote from Homer has retained all its truth: the bard has become the hostess or maître d'hôtel, the cupbearer has become the host or sommelier, and finally, the amphorae have fortunately been transformed into bottles, and the quality of our glasses has greatly improved to complement the contents.

A good meal is a topic of conversation, and to ensure that the conversation does not overshadow the food and wine, another quote from a great connoisseur, Sacha Guitry, seems appropriate:

Most dinners are veritable ambushes...
"When a dinner is bad, it doesn't just prove that the dinner is bad. It proves that the coffee will be undrinkable, it proves that the liqueurs will be forgotten and the cigars omitted. It proves that you don't want me to come back. It proves that I was wrong to come."
Why do I get the impression that people used to behave differently?
And what can we attribute this carelessness on the part of the hosts to?
To their stinginess?
Yes, first of all, of course. But above all, it is due to the ease with which one can open one's door to almost anyone.
You have to value your guests. But we invite ourselves to dinner to get to know each other.
We simply start with hunger.

Then we accept the invitation.
You do this three or four times, until it comes naturally...

And, more often than not, we realise - too late - that friendship doesn't come from eating.
Yes, too late! You can no longer back out. The habit is formed, it's a vicious circle. And then, people know that you have dined at each other's houses several times; they believe that you are close friends and cannot understand your mutual harshness, because, to everyone else, you are friends, except to yourselves.
In this way, you are destroying one of life's greatest pleasures. And, having failed to recognise it, you would almost dispute its existence.
And yet, is there any pleasure more delicious than having two cheerful, gourmet friends at your table?
I say "two" because when it comes to eating, as with conversation, it is best not to be too many.
The fewer the merrier.
For, let's face it, you never have fun when there are fifteen or twenty of you at the table - or anywhere else.
A large dinner party! But large dinner parties are grim affairs.
You're never seated where you'd like to be. It's always too hot, you're uncomfortable, and you eat a little bit of a bunch of complicated, pre-planned dishes.
Ah! How wonderful life is and how pleasant it is to chat when there are four of us and we've each eaten our own partridge.
Since you have a habit of having famous people in your home, don't invite them all at once.
One shines better when one is alone, and famous people prefer not to meet each other.
Invite them one at a time, offer them good food and good wine, you will have them often, and at least you will be able to enjoy them.
You invite Capus, and on the same evening, you invite Donnay to impress Capus.
This is an unnecessary mistake.
Capus is much more impressed to see Capus at your house than to see Donnay there.

Today, the great pleasure of dining is inseparable from other pleasures, such as the joy of seating family or friends around a tastefully decorated table, set with tasteful tableware. The joy of tasting refined dishes and carefully selected wines, served at the right temperature. The joy throughout the meal of exchanging interesting comments on the dishes and wines that go so well together. How true it is that "a good meal is as much about talking as it is about eating". This gastronomy absolutely requires the accompaniment of wine.In the kitchen for sauces and other simmered dishes, then as a partner to meals, accompanying them without ever overpowering them. Wine accentuates the regional character of local specialities, just as it enhances the flavour of seafood and game. Not to mention the aperitif, when its subtle presence already begins to loosen tongues.

Let's go back to the Middle Ages, when the prestigious presence of wine on the table already had something ritualistic and symbolic about it. In the days of chivalry, couples used to eat from the same plate and drink wine from the same cup. This undoubtedly gave rise to the saying that you only have to drink from someone's glass to know their thoughts.

Let us conclude with a quote from Paul Claudel:

"Wine, and I am referring both to the impersonal, everyday beverage that quenches the honest thirst of the worker and to the ancient vintages whose emblazoned coats of arms adorn the armorial of our most beautiful provinces, has a threefold mission; it is the vehicle of a threefold communion.

Firstly, communion with the mother earth where it sinks its roots, and from which it receives both soul and body.

Secondly, communion with ourselves. It is wine that gently warms, dilates and blossoms the elements of our personality, revives our memories, stimulates our imagination and, with those rosy fingers that Homer attributes to the dawn, opens up the most encouraging prospects for the future. Wine is the teacher of taste and, by training us in the practice of inner attention, it liberates the spirit and illuminates the intellect.

And finally, wine is the symbol and means of social communion: the table places all guests on the same level, and the cup that circulates among them fills us with indulgence, understanding and sympathy towards our neighbours.

Excerpt from "In Praise of Wine".