#allobrogica

[malevolat]

Spätburgunder Allobrogica ampelos

subodore à jamais un lointain souvenir dans la brume alentie qu’un soleil nimbe celui d’un temple aboli tombé du nadir

[somesaints]

St. Urban of Langres

Urban was bishop of the Gaulish town of Langres during a time of political upheaval.  At one point, he fell afoul of the local dux, an unpleasant man by the name of Junius Medellius.  Rather than flee into the countryside, Urban found support from a patron of his named Maceratius who owned a vineyard, and he was able to hide among the vines.  He stayed there for months, and his presence there was an open secret in Langres: a steady stream of visitors threatened to reveal his position to Medellius' thugs.

In fact, on one sunny morning in 382, some soldiers had been tracking the movements of Urban's followers, and they narrowed his position down to a specific row of vines.  By the time they had decided to apprehend him, a wind picked up and would not subside.  By the time the soldiers took a few steps, raindrops were falling on their heads; and they could not get close to Urban before a massive hailstorm arrived, denting their armor and sending them back to camp.  So it was that Urban survived his own storm, coming out of hiding and eventually becoming the patron saint of wine in France.

Naturally, the harvest of 382 yielded a rich and flavorful crop of the local Allobrogica grape, and Urban's friend Maceratius gained a great following for his wine.  It is said that a small barrel of the wine entered the cellars of the future Papal enclave of Avignon, resting there for over nine hundred years until the confusing time known as the Babylonian Captivity.  When the so-called Anti-Popes resided in Avignon, it became a tradition during the time between their reigns to dress the barrel in a cassock and a mitre, consulting it on minor questions before the next Anti-Pope could be elected.  The final Anti-Pope, the self-styled Benedict XIV, was so exhilarated with his own election that he drank the thick, sludgy wine from the barrel itself.  Over the course of the next few weeks, he turned into a statue, and he was not so much arrested as simply carted away and placed in the collection at the castle of Foix.