| Summary: | « Is the history of wine not the history of the world? » (Babrius, 2nd century). Between imagination and history, wine is one of the first products to have travelled the world. Since its origins, which have remained obscure for several reasons, to its globalization, the vine and wine have been the subject of the most extravagant stories and have played the most peculiar roles. Limiting ourselves to the ones directly related to our culture and history (essentially stemming from ancient narratives – Plato, Lucian of Samosata, Petronius or Apuleius – and both greek, latin and christian mythologies), we have attempted, in this essay, to consider the dimension and the meanings in those stories throughout the ages, as well as their relation to experimenting that nectar which « gladdens the heart » (Ecclesiast, XL: 20).
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