All Souls Day…

As the perfect accompaniment to All Saints Day, today is All Souls Day. This is the day when you are supposed to remember the souls of the faithful departed… Who are the faithful departed? Well, that is kind of a gray area. In Mexico, all the dead are the faithful… which is why they celebrate El Dia de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead.

To cover my bets, I am assuming that the deceased religious are the faithful departed… and my favorite group of religious are the Trappists. Technically, they are Strictly Observant Cistercians which is an order of monks and nuns that follow the rules of Bernard de Clairvaux. This order believes in work to support themselves, as opposed to older orders or monks and nuns that relied on dowries to support them. Because of this, these orders were more open to all who had a calling. Not just those men and women who’s parents could afford to buy them into an order. The works done by Trappists are varied. They keep bees, run forgeries, brew beer, run presses, make music cds and books, run fromageries, provide electricity to nearby communities, make bread (which I ate as a child)… and make wine and distill liquors.

So to celebrate the souls of the faithful departed, I am creating a list of Trappist wineries or at least the places where you can buy their products…

The Ark of the Rebellerie
Distillerie Manguin
Monastère de Solan
Mosteiro de Oseira
Abbaye de Latroun
Notre Dame des Neiges
Frattocchie
New Clairvaux
The Theophile Boutique
Agape – benefitting the Monasteries

I know that most American’s view Trappists as producing beer and making bread, but their dedication to viticulture has endured for centuries… Lets celebrate their accomplishments!

This entry was posted on November 2, 2008 at 3:23 pm and is filed under All Souls, viticulture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.