"Homo vini vitis, Essai sur les valeurs humaines de la vigne et du vin" by Jaques Maby | PU de Vincennes This text seems to ref

By inventing wine and viticulture, Homo sapiens endowed himself with a powerful symbolic apparatus, based on both sacred representations and profane ones, on a rich mythological discourse, on a refined aesthetic, both in taste and landscape, on polytechnical knowledge, on ethical prescriptions related to hedonistic practices, festive sharing, and our relationship with nature.

The modern imagination is still intrigued by this plant and this beverage, but we must update the meaning and richness to discover what constitutes our humanity and perhaps elevates us to Homo vini-vitis.

For ten thousand years, we have been in contact with the vine and wine, but do we know the effects of this long companionship?

What do we culturally owe to this plant and this beverage? Certainly a lot!

To the extent that Homo sapiens is also, in part, Homo vini-vitis: the one who combines the art of cultivating the vine, the art of making wine, and, of course, the art of drinking it.

Early on, humanity's sacred, mythological, and religious constructions relied on the signs of the vine and wine. Throughout history, these have found extensions in the secular values of aesthetics, hedonism, art, or heritage.

Our modern imagination thus inherits all these millennial symbolic constructions, which this work aims to update. Because understanding the meaning of the vine and wine is also discovering what constitutes our humanity.

Jacques Maby, aggregated and Ph.D. in geography, university professor, specialist in viticultural systems, lecturer and wine and vine expert sought after in France and abroad, is also familiar with the viticultural world for having managed his own vineyard.