WineSpirit

Sample of Sips

Samples from Sippin' on Top of the World

Here you will find samples of Sips found in Sippin' on Top of the World.... different Sips from one of six areas of focus: Breaking Down Barriers: Wine and Spirituality, Gleaning Lessons from the Vineyard, Toasting Good Times and Better Days, Savoring Life's Blessings, Finding Spirituality in the Details of the Day and Harvesting Wisdom of the Ages.

Gleaning Lessons from the Vineyard: Sip 18 What Contributes to Your Having a Good Day?

Sip 18: What Contributes to Your Having a Good Day?

Wine growers know that producing wine involves complex relationships and interdependencies. For the wine to reach the marketplace, many things must go reasonably well: working the land, decisions about which grapes to grow, caring for the vines, the winemaking process, and the storage and aging facilities.

Each link is critical, including how the wine is stored and displayed once it gets to market. From planting to opening the bottle, every step involves coordination and cooperation.

Adding to the complexity are the myriad varietals and vintages of wines that winemakers produce and customers buy. Wine’s variety and distinction mirrors such differences in people and the individual facets that have shaped our development over the years, contributing to who we are today.

While sipping your next glass of wine, you could reflect on the process it likely went through before reaching your dinner table. That, in turn, could remind you to appreciate more of what went well for you that day, and all that contributed along the way.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS FOR SIPPIN’:

1. What factors are involved in the successes of your day?

2. How do you notice all that goes well without doing so only after something has gone wrong?

3. (ask/answer your own question)

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Savoring Life's Blessings: Sip 50 How Could You Have Your Vacation and Keep It Too?

Sip 50: How Could You Have Your Vacation and Keep It Too?

A vacation―a change in scenery and a disruption of routine―provides opportunities to awaken you to dimensions of life often lost in the crush of daily activity. Going places, especially, for the first time, offers moments that could touch your heart and soul.

What fun it is to bring back tastes of good times, and to extend the vacation at home.
One year, we held onto a visit to Hawaii with tastes of Kona coffee. Another year, we returned with maple candies, syrups, and cheddar cheeses from Vermont.

Visitors to the wine country often bring home bottles of wine, reminding them of what they enjoyed in tasting rooms.

While Kona coffee, maple candy, and cheese have limited shelf lives, many wines could last for years and thus serve as unique time capsules. Opening them provides opportunities to revisit delightful memories while you are creating new ones.

A glass of wine with family and friends is one of life’s little pleasures, a reminder to extend the joy and beauty of a vacation beyond summer and throughout the year.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS FOR SIPPIN’:
1. What positive effects does a vacation have on you, after your return?
2. What do souvenirs contribute to extending the magic of a vacation experience?
3. How does a day of wine tasting seem like vacation, and how did you recall it, some time later, when opening a bottle you had brought home?
4.

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Harvesting Wisdom of the Ages: Sip 75 What is Your Prescription For Health?

One of wine’s characteristics is its potential for intoxication. One of life’s characteristics is its propensity for stress.

Times for clinking glasses and sharing good wishes are moments apart: from pressures, deadlines and constant struggles to keep up. A glass of wine at the end of a day is a way to savor the best of today and be “up” for tomorrow.

There are many drugs and pharmaceuticals used to address life's ailments and pains. Wine is a "prescription" for calm, in precarious times, and it includes the same caution found on every drug and pharmaceutical label: "take a limited number of tablets/teaspoons/tablespoons, and no more".

Wine's health benefits are predicated on consumption in moderation: physical health, with red wine good for the heart and white wine good for the lungs; and spiritual health, manifesting in the relaxing character of a glass of wine, subtly enhancing the taste of the food and the enjoyment of those sharing the experience. As a “drug” for life, wine invites you to bring the best into and out of yourself, in special times, with special people. The instructions on the label add: "find more of life's moments to celebrate, as an antidote to overload, anxiety and stress".

In difficult times, it is good to have friends and colleagues with whom to share support and care. Through good times and bad, each toast induces you to reflect on your relationships, strengthen them and savor them. Pausing to do so is good medicine for keeping “up” with everything life sends your way.

Reflection Questions for Sippin':

How is wine good medicine in your life?
What remedies help you respond to life pressures and enable you to see and feel what is good and blessed about your lot?
What strategies do you utilize to make time to stop and breathe and regain your balance?

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Toasting Good Times and Better Days: Sip 38 How Do You Celebrate Spring's Promise of Renewal?

Sip 38: How Do You Celebrate Spring’s Promise of Renewal?

The wine world has a wonderful holiday of spring, celebrated on different days in the spring season, depending on terroir and growing conditions: budbreak, when new growth emerges from the vines. As a Napa Valley newspaper heralded, “Budbreak is here. Let’s count our blessings and lift our glass to a new season of cheer!”

Spring is a time of renewal, of opportunities to celebrate new possibilities, to elevate life and rejoice in all we have.

The Christian community during this season welcomes Easter, opening up to deeper renewed relationships with the Power that gives life and love. In the Jewish community Passover commemorates release from all kinds of enslavement beyond the physical—to time and scheduling, to ideas (because “that’s the way it’s done”), or to money—all symbolized by escaping from “Egypt,” which in Hebrew means “constriction”.

There are so many ways to celebrate this season of life, love, and freedom to begin anew: the Easter Feast, the Passover Seder, the rejoicing in budbreak.

The Seder, with its four glasses of wine that accompany a festive meal and the telling of a story, has its parallel in every occasion where people gather for an evening of fine dining and fellowship. The enjoyment of a multi-course meal might include pairing wines with different courses. Changes in tastes of food and wine blend with the ebb and flow of conversation.

Whether it be a vintner’s dinner, business people celebrating the close of an arduous deal, couples celebrating their anniversary, winegrowers rejoicing in budbreak, or folks enjoying a special meal to welcome spring, these festive banquets and feasts become significant events to savor and cherish as you bask in the warmth and glow of renewal and welcome the lighter time of year.

What a wonderful season, filled with renewal, rebirth, new light, renewed hopes, optimism, and the joy and blessing of freedom. Choose to notice and celebrate spring and the fruits thereof.

May the growing light of this time of year add spring to your steps, and may all your glasses be full and overflowing with the blessings of renewal and the planting of seeds that will yield wonderful harvests in all that awaits you, as the year continues to unfold.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS FOR SIPPIN’:

1. Which is your favorite season, and what makes it special?

2. What special seasonal activity do you enjoy, particularly in spring?

3. How does understanding the life cycle of the vineyard contribute to your awareness and appreciation of the cycles of the year?

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Sip 58: What about TeaSpirit, BreadSpirit & Olive OilSpirit?

Occasionally people question the notion that wine, as a consumable, has a unique connection to spirituality. Those familiar with the Tea Ceremony appreciate its special, even spiritual qualities. Home baked and artisan breads evoke in many people a special spirit and an elevated awareness of human connectivity with the earth and its bounty. Cooking with olive oil accentuates the highest quality of preparation of a meal with an ancient ingredient. Varieties of bottled spring and mineral waters evoke, in some, awareness of life's preciousness and its sources. Many cannot start a new day without CoffeeSpirit.

To connect with, and enjoy, these other tastes of life, in such special ways, is an essential goal of WineSpirit. Wine, throughout its history, provides access points to spirituality, to noticing and celebrating particular moments and blessings of life. With tea, bread, coffee and so many special taste treats, you are given opportunities to notice and appreciate one of life's little blessings, even miracles. What sets wine apart from all these and other special "fruits" is that wine alone exists, from the start, and in varieties of cultures, as a beverage whose purpose is to see, acknowledge and enjoy life's precious moments, whether in religious settings or in otherwise ordinary ones. Wine serves to remind you to savor the bread and the care with which it was baked. It helps you appreciate other ceremonies that elevate life apart from normal usage, such as tea. It calls to mind that behind the jolt of caffeine that awakens you to a new day is a special blend of coffee that you have chosen.

Indeed FoodSpirit or LifeSpirit, the joys of nature, of art, and of all manner of marvels in daily life, provide ongoing invitations to see and celebrate countless blessings of life. WineSpirit, however, is the one unique spiritual access point that exists, at its core, in order to shed light on all the other spiritual access points that await your notice.

Reflection Questions for Sippin'

What special treats or tastes in your day awaken you to the preciousness of life?
How do music and art and ________ serve as spiritual access points?
How could/does pausing to notice and celebrate some facet of life add to the quality of the rest of your day?

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