The drinking of wine in religious observance has its beginning in ancient beliefs about the potency of the bodily fluids of the gods. [70] In earlier times, people believed they could acquire divine attributes by drinking these liquids, just as - it is believed - in some cultures warriors drank the blood of vanquished foes to bolster their own valour.

From left to right: (Click on a thumbnail to enlarge)
1. Attic black-figure vase painting, c550 B.C. Peasants and boys collecting grapes from a climbing vine [70]
2. Attic black-figure vase painting, c550 B.C. The whole process of vintage with Satyrs impersonating peasants. [70]

In the earliest times water and milk were accepted as symbols of these godly fluids but it was ultimately wine, as the blood of the grapes, that gained pre-eminence. The heady effect and heightened sense of power that wine induces manifested particularly during ancient festivals such as the three-day Greek feast of Anthesteria. [133] This wine festival is the earliest known to be devoted to Dionysus, one of the many classical Greek wine gods.

The feast takes its name from the spring month of Anthesterion and celebrates the broaching of the new wine harvested the previous year. Drinking revelries were a feature of many ancient pastoral wine festivals.