The last time I saw the stunning Italian actress Virna Lisi on screen, she was having a wonderful time vamping it up as a reptilian Queen Catherine de Medici in the 1994 film adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas potboiler La Reine Margot. The photo above is from her 1965 Hollywood film debut, How to Murder Your Wife, with Jack Lemmon.
It’s not clear just what the occasion is, but the smile, the eye-contact and the raised glass together comprise an ensemble of gestures instantly recognizable as a toast, a ritual so intimately linked to wine drinking that its origins are shrouded in the mists of pre-history. What we can say for sure is that by the time something like a culture of wine can be discerned in the archaeological/ art history record, the toast has already assumed a character we recognize.
As evidence, consider the 8th century BCE Assyrian royal, above, resplendent in his cornrows and intricately braided beard who seems as fully at home with the practice as Ms. Lisi. The same lifted cup and focused gaze; the hint, perhaps, of a smile.
The juxtaposition of the 1960’s era Italian film star and ancient monarch is almost eerie – as if the millennia separating them had melted away and each were transfixed by the gaze of the other. “I’m about to drink,” the prince seems to say. “You drink, too.”
So deeply imbued are we with the notion of the toast as a friendly gesture conveying good-will, esteem, even affection, that it’s easy to lose sight of what was very likely responsible for the emergence of the practice in the first place: the danger associated with undisciplined group drinking.
The problem is obvious. In a group where the pace of drinking isn’t supervised, a situation will quickly develop in which some are inebriated while others remain sober – a state in which those operating under the influence are at a distinct disadvantage. For some to retain the full use of their wits even as others slid into oblivion poses a clear threat.
To address this risky situation, we very early on invented the regulated drinking party, at which the company indulges enthusiastically yet always reciprocally and symmetrically. All drink together, glass for glass, at a measured pace that ensures both parity of blood alcohol and a measure of safety for all involved. Drinking proceeds in rounds, which means when you drink, I drink, too.
It’s the essence of the toast to serve both as a cue that another round is about to go down and a call for everyone to participate. To fail to join in would be break the social drinking contract and risk your falling outside the pale of civilized behavior.
Participation was more than a signal that you are with the program, on the bus. It is a pledge of full engagement, good-faith, and honest intention. The practice has proved very long-lived. In many contemporary societies, it’s still routine to seal agreements and settle disputes with a shared drink. The deal isn’t done (or the hatchet buried) until the glasses clink.
But if the toast had to depend solely on its pacing or dealmaking skills to justify its existence, it would likely have long since been trundled off to the junkyard of discarded rituals. There’s another bit to be reckoned with. The lifted glass is traditionally accompanied by speech, frequently short and sweet (Bottoms up! Cin Cin!) though occasionally more elaborate – an apt quotation, a few lines of verse, perhaps even something approaching a mini oration.
One of the things a toast does better than anything else is give people an opportunity (excuse?) to say things they may be too shy to say in the ordinary course of things: the very simple but important things that might otherwise go unsaid. It’s why at our table we try to see that no drink – be it ever so humble or perfunctory – goes down without citing the occasion, noting an achievement, acknowledging a happiness (or, lacking one, doing our best to wish one into existence).
A toast is an invitation to celebrate a victory, share a hope, voice a commitment. It’s an all-around lovely habit to cultivate, I think. It’s certainly one that makes a strong connection to the generations of wine drinkers who have come before.
And if you’re feeling a little awkward or tongue-tied at first, remember that one of the things a glass of wine is there to do is lend its mystic aura of warmth, grace, and gravitas to whatever you have to say.
I’ll clink to that. How about you?