Synopsis of Wedding Wine by Rachel Glass

 

 

      Wedding wine opens at the end of World War II as an American soldier falls in love with an Italian girl. Before he is allowed to marry her, he must first drink the family’s homemade wedding wine. This wine gives the couple who drinks it a vision of their entire futures together so that they know without question if they should marry.

     The couple does drink and they have visions of their very happy lives together. Their visions include seeing their future children. This is the introduction to present day, in which the rest of the novel takes place.  

     Now elderly, the couple has lived the lives predicted by the wine. Many other people have come to believe in the wedding wine’s powers as well, and so visit the vineyard to drink before they marry. Everyone had always accepted that the wine was a blessing until now. Each of the couple’s three children is now questioning the wine’s properties, and each for a different reason.

     Their eldest son, who is now in his late fifties, has turned the wedding wine’s vineyard into a tourist industry. He seeks to market the wine world wide, but must somehow analyze the source of the wine’s properties so that it can be reproduced on a mass scale. He is confident that the wine’s effects must be from an organic source, or else delusion.

     Their daughter, now forty-two, has drunk the wine with many men. Unfortunately, she has never married. All of her visions ended badly. She has become afraid that her faith in the wine has ruined her life. She is desperate to learn if the wine is, or is not, truly magical.

     Their third child is thirty-eight-years-old. He drank the wine and in his vision saw himself alone and so he became a priest, giving up the woman he had always loved. His young theology students have been asking him questions about the now famous wine that he cannot answer. The priest believes that ethically the wine must be understood before it is unleashed on the masses by his brother. 

     The priest questions if the wine’s powers are supernatural, organic, or mere suggestion. He sets out to investigate. Samples of the grapes, soil, and even the wood from the barrels are sent to a lab for testing. He uncovers the spiritual happenings of the land where the grapes are grown. He explores all psychological possibilities. (The wedding wine investigation serves as a metaphor exploring faith verses religion.)

     While the wine is still under question, couples come to the vineyard to drink. Each couple has a different scenario with unique relationship conflicts and questions. Some couples even become intertwined with the family, and with the wine investigation.

     The eldest son takes a business partner to help him create his wedding wine empire. The business partner drinks the wine with the daughter and they marry. The eldest son then has his only love, a prostitute, come and try to break them up. The Prostitute is converted to a believer in the wedding wine. She drinks with the eldest son. She breaks his heart, but he now believes that the wine is magic and with new faith finds a wife.

     Lab test results on the grapes, soil, and wood come back. They rule out any organic substance as a possible cause. The priest has now eliminated all possibilities but good and evil. He decides that to test the wine’s efficacy he must drink the wine again and see if he has the same vision he had as a teen. He drinks with the woman he has always loved. They are both disappointed to see that in their visions they are only friends.

     The priest decides to leave the priesthood. He has come to see the wine as a faults idol. He now believes that it was not God that called him to the priesthood, but the wine and it maybe evil.

     The priest's mentor dies and he goes to his funeral. On the train coming home he finds a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. After reading it, he has the answer. The priest returns home to the vineyard and smashes a century old wedding wine barrel.  Inside he finds hallucinogenic mushrooms growing. He marries the woman he has always loved and tells the family the truth.

    The family must now decide if they should continue serving the wine. The elderly parents decide to drink the wine once more before they make a choice. They do so and then make love. They die in each others embrace. The priest now understands that all that drink see what is already true, but with an increase of faith. He and his new wife take over the vineyard and continue serving the wedding wine.