Wine beyond January: re-think, re-connect, re-set

​The vomitorium was, it turns out, just a figment of the nineteenth century’s overly active imagination – a colourful, if graphic, symbol of the kind of gourmandising that the Victorians liked to pin on someone else, somewhere else. Despite this reputation for Bacchanalian excess, the toga and sandals brigade of the classical world were more about moderation. Sophrosyne was the Greek term which roughly translates as self-control, prudence, temperance. January, named after the ancients’ Janus-faced god, is a time to take inspiration from their approach, to look backwards to the Dionysian frenzy of the festive period and forwards to the year to come. It’s the perfect opportunity, whilst the body is sated and the coffers depleted, to reassess our ongoing relationship with Dionysus’ greatest gift, wine.