Wine in Literature

It is a commonly appreciated thing that wine has featured in literature for as long as we can remember. The world’s best selling and best known book, the Holy Bible, has many instances in which wine features heavily; Jesus turning water into the much richer and more substantial beverage; after the great flood, the first thing Noah did was plant a vineyard and began his life anew from this starting point; Isreal was deprived of drinking any wine as a punishment from God. The list goes on. Lest we also forget the number of times the great Bard, William Shakespeare, spoke of drinking at a feast in celebration of a marriage or birth, or even how his characters drink themselves into a miserable stupor if the former does  not work out as we might hope. Of course, neither condones drinking in excess, as particularly Shakespeare’s characters suffer post-binge, and often partake in activities they live to regret.
But what of new works which speak about wine, weaving into their stories metaphors and hidden meanings behind the drinking and eating of various delicious substances? Surely they should be getting with the times, incorporating modern gadgets which are relevant to today’s wine connoisseurs? Who knows, maybe we’ll find Vinturi featuring in the next popular novel of this century…