Grail and noah's wine: would you take a little glass?

... well, especially if you are over 18!

The Grail has been the object, for many centuries, of a mythical and mystical quest at the crossroads of legends and history, of Christianity and Druidism. When we speak of the grail, we sometimes speak of the "radiant vase" containing a "beverage of immortality", sometimes of the chalice that collected the blood of Christ on the Cross. Whether alchemical, metaphysical or spiritual, its quest leads us on the paths of knowledge, clairvoyance, profound transformation, redemption and even immortality. Child of Celtic cauldrons as much as of oriental vases containing elixirs and magical beverages, the Grail designates the container as much as the content. And precisely... In this article, we are going to focus on one of the theories put forward by Robert Charroux concerning one of the liquors it could have contained - the wine of noah, a vintage with a powerful and psychedelic power before its time... But, before serving us a drink and while our ideas are clear, let's stop for a moment on the etymology and the origin, highly debated, of the word Grail...

At the origin of the word Grail

It is attested in a Franco-Provençal or Occitan form from Latin gradalis ("broad and hollow dish"), but its best established etymology is that which sees it as a derivative cratalis from Latin cratis ("claie") substantive in the sense of "container".

In any case, it has been established that the word is linked to an ancient domestic and rural reality with forms such as gré, greau, grial in the East and North-East region and forms such as graal or grazal in the Franco-Provençal and Occitan languages.

Graal is sometimes, and especially in ancient texts, written "gréal", a kind of abbreviation of sangreal, which means "holy Jatte" [1], in the sense that the classical etymology of the grail gives.

But by this name, the "ancient romans" meant sometimes the holy vase where the blood of Jesus Christ was (the "Holy Real"), sometimes the blood itself (the "Real Blood" for "Royal Blood"):

« Such is the domain of the Grail whose quest leads to immortality and self-knowledge in the love of the Whole... It is this search for Unity, this supreme exultation required by fusion in the divine that projects the first image of the Grail: the "radiant vase" containing the "drink of immortality": container and content are absorbed in the divine by a transmutation operated at the last rung of Jacob's ladder ! » Patrick Rivière

Graal and gréal

Robert Charroux evokes Gréal as an ancient and marvelous drink: in fact, he explains that after the disappearance of the Atlanteans, the Hyperboreans and the great Aryan ancestors, whose homeland was North America, the Celts found themselves "cut off from the land of the gods", that is to say from the source, the initiation and the knowledge. But they knew that "beyond the river Ocean, at the limits of the western world", they could find the GREEK, the marvelous drink of the ancient fathers; from there, this millenary attempt to return to the sources, this prodigious quest for the Grail which, under the influence of the Christian ideas, deviated from its true way, lost all its essence. But what was the intoxicating grail that brought joy to the heart and ideas to the brain? It was probably based on noah.

The wine that makes you crazy and blind

This noah had the reputation of giving a wine that made people crazy and/or blind (we will know later that this fear was linked to the presence of methanol, more important than for the other grape varieties - but in reality, not to that extent!) This was in any case the astute reason that led to the elimination of this true Aryan initiation drink, considered as a true grail. Even if this wine is no more pernicious than our current vintages in reasonable doses. It became forbidden to plant noah, in the same way as tobacco or Indian hemp. Its banning has remained obscure because it has never been justified, not even by its instigators.

A wine website selling noah vines states that since the law of 1934, the noah grape variety has been banned from winemaking in France (along with 5 other varieties: clinton, herbemont, isabelle, jacquez and othello) under the pretext that noah wine made people crazy or blind. Already at that time, many professional winemakers spoke out against this ban, which seems to have been motivated by other criteria:

• In the 1920s, France experienced a major wine crisis of overproduction that led to a collapse in prices. How to limit the quantity of wine produced? The peasant world cultivated and produced its own wine, often with rustic varieties, including the Noah grape variety grown on trellises.

• In addition, during the 1930s, France developed the Protected Designation of Origin and the major wine producing areas voiced their concerns about the production of this peasant wine.

• Finally, we must not forget that in addition to all this, the noah grape variety is an American hybrid grape variety....

Thus, for several professionals of the sector, it would be all of these reasons which would have, in reality, pushed for the banning of this variety, and the others mentioned above.

Since the decree of prohibition was repealed in 2003, the production of noah grape variety is again tolerated within the framework of a particular use as the family consumption. It has even become increasingly popular in recent years, with the advent of permaculture and the release of the film Vitis Prohibita highlighting the resilience and usefulness of such grape varieties. Note, however, that the Noah currently grown from a Taylor seedling made by Otto Wasserzicher in 1896. It is a hybrid variety directly producing Vitis riparia and Vitis labrusca. Cultivated for decades in France, it can be found in the wild on the bangs of certain vineyards, or even still cultivated in a few plots or established on trellises in private homes. However, it is not necessarily the original variety, as it was cultivated in ancient times, to which Charroux refers.

Still, today as in the past, the noah is the only grape that provides natural wine. The other species are prone to disease and must undergo 3 to 20 treatments with sulfur, copper sulfate and other chemicals, all of which are based on poisonous substances. The wine we harvest is therefore laced with poisons and the intoxication it provides has undoubtedly lost the qualities that in other times made it sacred in the eyes of certain peoples. On the other hand, noah and other varieties that have now disappeared, seemed to truly arouse a delirium similar to that provided by other hallucinogenic plants.

For Robert Charroux, the etymology of the word wine gives this drink its original and lost meaning: wine derives from the Sanskrit word vêna = loved, desired, from the root vên which in the Vedas designates the spirituous and sacred liquor of the sôma. Nowadays, we know that the nature of sôma itself continues to be the subject of study and speculation. But the latest research is leaning towards a mushroom used for a beverage that has been sifted through 3 rather particular filters: the sun's rays, the sheep's wool and... the priest's bladder, since it is only after the priest has drunk it (and therefore via his urine) that it was actually consumed!

In any case, the wines of Antiquity were probably not at all like those of our time; in the past, they were aged in the sun, often with the addition of sea water, various spices and even opium. Nowadays, the hybridized vine, drugged, does not provide any more hallucinogenic liquor. But it is probable that in the year 2000, it was not so, and the Celts with the jovial character, easily prone to the boast, but very brave in fact, had to have a particular veneration for this wine which seemed to increase tenfold the forces and the bravery. It is true that the vine did not grow in Gaul: only the druids or the priests had to cultivate some for the secret needs of their priesthood. Mead was only an ersatz, and the real mead was the drink that the De'Danann of Ireland had once brought from the Mag Meld, the "plain of joy" located across the Atlantic. The noah, the last vestige of the sacred plant of the Atlanteans, is disappearing, along with the old ancestral customs that it is bad form to honor. Only a few initiates, defying the law, continue to grow the vine, whose wine "made mad".

Let's go back to the Scandinavian mead, which was said to have a divine origin. That's how powerful Noah's wine must have been in comparison!

In reality, mead is one of the oldest alcohols and existed in China in 7000 BC. It is a drink made from water and fermented honey that is mentioned in myths from several continents.

Evoked in the Nordic, Hindu, Greek or Celtic myths, it remains a drink associated with the gods or the paradise which confers very particular powers (modification of the states of consciousness, clairvoyance, visions, gifts of poetry, science, immortality...)

Sources:

Robert Charroux, Le livre de ses livres, Robert Laffont

Patrick Rivière, Sur les sentiers du Graal, Robert Laffont

For the etymology of the word "grail" article Wikipédia ; Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales.

For noha, article Wikipédia (noha, cépage) ; site Viticabrol (noah raisin fraise)

For sôma, article « Soma, l’Antique Enthéogène », blog Zamnesia

For mead, site La Soif du Temps, hydromellerie artisanale, L’hydromel, toute une histoire

Free Illustrations by Canva and Wix