From a section called The Legends Behind the Folklore of Wine in wine-searcher, this extract from “The Curious World of Wine” by Richard Vine (no kidding), emeritus professor of enology at Purdue University enlightens us on how vinous folklore still makes up some of our every day clichés…
To Your Health!
Surviving wisdom indicates that a toast was originally a deft move to splash just a small amount of wine into each other’s cup to ensure that neither was being poisoned and was thus, quite literally, a wish for health! Drunk as the Pope For a tippler to become ‘as drunk as the pope’ is inspired by Pope Clement the VI…His lifestyle was more like a wealthy bon vivant secular prince than that of a poor priest. He bought the entire city of Avignon so he could wallow in his earthly pleasures, among which were the services of a harem of young women and a stable of young boys. His lasting infamy came when he celebrated Mass while drunk and thus brought papel inebriation into a standard of intoxication.
The Village Market 
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