The Symposium

Wine had many uses for Greeks. The most well known was the symposium that was the most important social function and was centered around the drinking of wine, which was drunk almost always diluted with water. The practice of drinking undiluted wine was associated with northern barbarians. The symposia were not just for drinking and eating. They were the favorite forum of spirited discussions among philosophers and intellectuals that lasted several hours, often into the early morning hours. That might have been the reason for diluting the wine. While they enjoyed drinking wine during the course of the symposia, they wanted to maintain a sharp intellect during their dialectic exercises.

The practice of drinking wine with mezethes (varieties of appetizers) continues to this day and it is the favorite social form of the Greeks. Greeks rarely, if ever, engage in any kind of drinking without having some type of food to accompany the drinking of wine. Philosophy has been replaced by football and politics but everything else remains the same. It has become one of my favorite, often at mid-day, rituals as I gather with my friends at the Greek version of a pub to take a break from gardening or other manuals chores, taste some of the new vintages, try the daily specials of mezethes, and catch up with the news of the village.