Sacramental Wine
One of the most time-honored and cherished tokens of any religious ceremony is the partaking of sacramental wine. A tangible sign of inward wholeness, it expresses deep commitment, solemnity, and unity with others. What better way is there to show devotion to your betrothed than through this symbolic ritual? From balanced and full-bodied red wines and white wines, to crisp sparkling wines, Universal Life Church Sacramental Wines come from some of the highest quality grapes grown in Washington State and are a perfect complement to the most important celebrations in your life. Browse our recommendations and reviews below or peruse our varied selection, where there is something to suit every ceremony and palate, and order your Sacramental wine today.
About Sacramental Wine
Sacramental wine, also called altar wine, is used by the Catholic Church in the celebration of the Eucharist, which is the part of mass where the priest and the congregation consume the symbolic body and blood of Christ as part of the ritual of Holy Communion. As is suggested by its name, sacramental wine is taken during all of the sacraments including, for instance, weddings.
There are many rules to follow that specifically concern the manufacturing of sacramental wine and the actual drinking of the wine. Traditionally, altar wine can be made from only one family of wine grapes - the Vitis vinifera grape family, which includes all of the classic grape varietals like Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir, Pinot gris, Merlot and more. The wine made from these grapes can only be pure grape wine with no additives of any kind. Although white wine is used in western Eucharist ceremonies, red wine is preferred in the east as this better represents the concept of the blood of Christ. Those branches of the church that object to alcohol serve pasteurized grape juice as altar wine.
In some branches of the Catholic Church, a small amount of water is added to the sacramental wine either before or after it is consecrated. Although the tradition of sharing both the body and the blood of Christ with the congregation dates back almost two thousand years, there were times when only the priest presiding over the mass partook of the sacraments. Nowadays, though, it is traditional for the entire congregation to share in both the body of Christ - bread or a Eucharistic wafer - and his blood - the Sacramental wine.
According to the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, there are four traditional ways in which the communicants in the congregation can partake in the offering of sacramental wine. None of the ways take precedence over the others and all have equal weight within the Holy Communion ritual. Communicants can therefore either drink directly from the chalice or they can drink from the chalice through a metal tube or straw. The third way is for the priest to dip a small piece of the bread representing the body of Christ into the wine and then feed it to the communicant and the final way is for the entire breadloaf to be soaked in the wine and for each communicant to be fed a spoonful of the wine-soaked bread.
Altar wine is a cherished part of sacramental celebrations and is a historical and time-honored part of the church's mystique.
