Missionaries and Wine

- Erica Peters <e-peters-9@alumni.uchicago.edu> wrote:

Somewhat tangentially, I've always wanted to know more about what theFrench riests/missionaries in Indochina did about the wine they neededto celebrate Mass. Recently, I've discovered some answers, though a bitcontradictory: Docteur Hocquard's Une Campagne au Tonkin (1884-1886) (nicely edited byPhilippe Papin), says that a missionary "ne boit `a ses repas que del'eau et une infusion de ce the' vert [...] Tous les ans, il rec,oit biende Hong-Kong quelques bouteilles de vin qu'envoie le pere procureur, maisil les garde precieusement pour dire sa messe." (p. 316). Thisascetic image is a bit undercut by an 1832 letter from Jean-CharlesCornay, passing along a message from the bishop of Ke-Vinh, requestingthat the pere procureur send him "des vins de Bordeaux (pour boireaux repas) et non du vin fort qui n'est bon que pour la messe etautrefois pour Mgr. de Gortyne." (p. 126 of Cornay's Lettres) Apparently not all the missionaries were happy with water or tea, and notall of them saved their wine for masses. But these sources agreethat the wine was imported. If anyone has any sources on the use oflocally produced wine (either for mass or meals), or missionariessubstituting other products for wine in the mass, I'd be veryinterested!

Erica

Dear Erica Peters,

Last May, while searching through Paul Vial's correspondance at the MEP in Paris, I stumbled on a letter he wrote to his sister in France thanking her for the 2 crates of fine wine she had sent him, along with more crates of carefully packed glassware. Considering that Vial was posted in outhern Yunnan in the 1910s and that these goods had to travel by an array of means before reaching him, it certainly seems to indicate that indeed, fine wine drinking was not just a pleasure of the past for all these holy men. Incidently, cheap mass wine was provided by the Bishop on the Vicariate's budget, while anything else in terms of amenities of life had to be bought privately by each missionary, or sent by their family. Vial's sister owned a chateau...

Jean Michaud

U. of Montreal

From: VSG-owner@u.washington.edu [mailto:VSG-owner@u.washington.edu] On

Behalf Of Frank Proschan

Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 4:08 PM

To: Vietnam Studies Group

Subject: Re: Missionaries and wine

There's also the wonderful passage from Chateaugay, illustrated with an engraving if my memory serves me, describing a French military caravan:"The boys, their pretty hair rolled coquettishly atop their heads and held by tortoiseshell combs and blue, green, yellow, or red ribbons, are proudly camped on the boxes of Tokay and Chateau-Lafite." Chateaugay [Jaffeux], Pierre. Amours exotiques: scènes de la vie en Cochinchine. Paris: Léopold Cerf; 1890.

If the colonial military could manage to bring fine wines along on their caravans, I'm sure their priestly counterparts could manage to find ample supplies without having to wait a century for the future Dalat wine industry to develop.

Best,

Frank Proschan

Project Director

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From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Tue Feb 1 16:00:58 2005

Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:59:43 -0700

From: Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: Missionaries and wine

It is a different sort of wine about which I will be talking.

Last Summer I visited the Thie^n An monastery in Hue. A lovely place that has a Dalat flavour. Normally this monastery was not open to the public. By sheer chance, I was given a tour of the monastery by a fre`re who was a native from Nghe^. An -- a fact which reminded me of the Catholic tradition in Quy`nh Lu+u and other parts of Nghe An\. I was told that on week days, to raise funds, the monastery sells orange liqueur, ru+o+.u tha'nh (wine used to celebrate Mass), and other souvenir gifts made in the monastery. I also heard that before do^?i mo+'i, the monastery also offered excellent French conversation classes to the public.

I was under the impression that the liqueur and wine making techniques at this monastery might have existed long time ago, judging from the established orange orchard behind it.

VS