Bacchus and the first grapevine

The man, the myth, the legend...

Here’s a story that has many variations, but learn it and you’ll sound properly cultured at dinner parties…

Bacchus? Dionysus? Who’s Who?

Let’s start at the beginning. Bacchus was the Roman’s own version of the Greek god Dionysus but while they share a wardrobe of ivy crowns, leopard skins and a penchant for ecstatic revelry, they’re not quite the same. Dionysus came first: the Greek god of wine, fertility, ritual madness and semi-religious ecstasy. He was the androgynous outsider who became divine with a wild, theatrical entourage of ‘maenads and satyrs’ who, quite frankly, were the wildest party crew mythology ever dreamt up. These folk embodied everything Dionysus stood for: liberation, instinct, ecstasy and occasionally, absolute chaos.

Bacchus was his Roman echo but while he retained much of the Dionysian flair, this was gradually streamlined by the sensibilities of Rome. The Romans gave him more festivals but over time, he became more associated with the social and celebratory aspects of wine rather than with the spiritual wildness Dionysus often evoked. Think of Bacchus as Dionysus but through an imperial lens: less mystical cult leader and more party god of the villa. Still, their stories entwine and the most famous of them is the tale of how the first grapevine grew.

The Legend of the First Grapevine

According to one of history’s most enduring myths, the first grapevine was created through the trauma of loss. As the tale goes, it was actually Dionysus rather than Bacchus who was in love with a beautiful, young boy named Ampelos. One day, tragedy struck when Ampelos started showing off on a wild bull and fell to his death. Dionysus was inconsolable and wandered around in mourning, mad with grief and from the tears that fell onto the earth while Dionysus bent over the broken body of Ampelos, something miraculous grew: a slender tendril winding its way into the sunlight. This was the first grapevine, which became a living tribute to love lost and memories cherished. Some say that Dionysus squeezed the berries and drank their juice, finding in its heady rush both solace and transcendence.

In another version, the goddess Gaia (Earth herself) took pity on Dionysus and transformed Ampelos into the vine as a gesture of renewal. Thus, wine was born from the union of grief and generosity, from earth and gods, loss and desire.

Did it, though?

Weeeell. SOME say that the grapevine was always wild and its unadulterated, uncultivated version still grows across parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. These wild vines (Vitis vinifera subsp. Sylvestris) are like the untamed cousins of our cultivated Vitis vinifera vines, producing smaller berries with tougher skins and bitter juice. The wild vines were there from ancient times, twisting up trees, basking in sunshine and offering fruit to the birds and bears until humans tamed them around 8,000 years ago. This apparently happened in the South Caucasus region, which is modern-day Georgia, Armenia and eastern Turkey, where some enterprising Neolithic farmer noticed that birds liked the berries because they were sweet, pressed the juice and then realised that it you left it too long, it went bubbly, made you giggle, do the robot and eventually, fall over.

Which version do you believe?

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