A GLASS OF WINE TO THE MEMORY OF DARIO FO. IN MONTALCINO IN 1986, FO EXPLAINED THE ORIGINS OF WINE (OFTEN IN HIS SHOWS) AND THEATRE LINKED TO DIONYSUS. HE DESIGNED WINE LABELS, AND WROTE: “WHOEVER GETS DRUNK ON BAD WINE IS A BAD DRUNK”

The origins of wine and theater are inseparably linked to the cult of Dionysus. “Theater is the cult of pleasure and the celebration of both the sacred and sacrilegious. It is ritual and sacrifice in its origins, meant to link people collectively and free them from anxieties and tensions. It was an occasion for catharsis and liberation, a time to build up strength and get emotionally charged. Even today, quality Theater tends to bring together and create communities that develop or dissolve needs. And it is a party even if it has a tragic ending”.
This is what Dario Fo, one of the greatest masters of the Italian theater of our day, and all around artist (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997), said to the director of WineNews Alessandro Regoli, in an interview in 1986 in Montalcino, where Dario Fo staged his “Wine Mystery Show”.
The show was just one of the eternal jester’s many forays linked to the various art forms he experienced. Looking through the vast amount of material collected on www.archivio.francarame.it and edited by his equally famous partner Franca Rame, there are innumerable articles, compositions and reflections dedicated to Bacchus.
There are the many steps of "wine making" he described in his most famous show, "Mistero Buffo" as well as wine labels that Fo (one of the founders of the world movement of Slow Food, ed.) designed himself, like "The Wine of Peace" for Cantina Produttori Cormòns in 2001 and "Casanuova di Nittardi" Chianti Classico 2010 of the Nittardi Farm. In an essay written in 1996, he wrote: “All the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern gods gave the creation of wine to men as a reward for their wisdom and their honesty ... Whoever gets drunk on bad wine is a bad drunk ... the desperate are abominable drunks, the worst enemies of good wine ... We must get exceptionally drunk respecting rituals: only on religious holidays!”.
These are just some of his writings on wine throughout his exceptional career in comedy, satire and political activism, with which we wish to remember him.