I think the drunkest I've ever been on a New Year's Eve, and also the most fun I've ever had on a NYE, was way back in my late teenage years in company with a group of Italian priests of my acquaintance at that time.
Boy, could those guys drink! They explained to me that wine was part of their culture and that they grew up with it, taking a sip with meals now and then as children, from their parents. Alas, I had built up no such immunity at that tender age, so became quite merry with them. It probably didn't help that I had a MASSIVE crush on the ultra-gorgeous Father Bernardi!
I remember so well the wine they were drinking. I particularly asked Father John for the name. He told me it was called Lacryma Christi.
Remembering this previously long forgotten NYE prompted me to find this in Wikipedia:
Lacryma Christi, (also Lachryma Christi, literally "tear of Christ"), is the name of a celebrated Neapolitan type of wine produced on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Campania, Italy.
The name Lacryma Christi comes from an old legend that Christ, crying over Lucifer's fall from heaven, cried his tears on the land and gave divine inspiration to the vines that grew there. The sides of Vesuvius are deeply scarred by past lava flows, and its lower slopes are extremely fertile, dotted with villages and covered with vineyards.
The wine is entirely earthly, but quite enjoyable. The red is garnet in color with a pleasant scent of red fruit and white pepper and a juicy, tart flavor with apple-skin flavors and lemony acidity in balance. The white wine is crisp and dry.My happy memories of that long ago night tell me that the wine was absolutely
divine (Groan!), but my euphoria may have had more to do with my close proximity to the (I'm saying it again! There's no other word for him!)
divine Father Bernardi.
