What kind of man the cellarer of the Monastery should be 1) As cellarer of the monastery should be chosen from the community, one who is sound in judgement, mature in character, sober, not a great eater, not self-important, not turbulent, not harshly spoken, not an off-putter, not wasteful. 2) but a God-fearing man, who will be a father to the whole community 3) He is to have charge of all affairs 10) He must regard the chattels of the monastery and its whole property as if they were sacred vessels of the altar (Chapter 31 of the Benedictine Rules, as posted in English inside the Burgundy's Abbey Notre Dame de Citeaux) So starts the book, Shadows in the Vineyard, the true story of the plot to poison the world's greatest wine. The author Maximillian Potter admits at the end of the book that when he came to write this story for a magazine and later turned it into a book, he knew very little about wine. This is all the more amazing because the book reads very well, has … [Read more...]