Walla Walla Wine Word for Dummies: Weekly Wine Word Wednesday

The Weekly Walla Walla Wine Word for Dummies: Bacchus 

Bacchus,  known as Dionysus in ancient Greece, was the name adopted by the Romans as the god of wine and grape harvest and all around wild and crazy parties.  You know, a lot like Spring Release in Walla Walla, with wine, intoxication, fertility rites, orgies, endless music, ritual madness, gluttony, ecstatic dancing, and often nudity. The prime years of Bacchus took  place around 200 BC. Spring Release in Walla Walla takes place every first weekend of May.

Bacchus also happens to be a white hybrid wine grape created in Germany at the Federal Research Institute for Cultivated Plants in 1933. It is a Silvaner x Riesling cross with Muller-Thurgau. This wine grape received varietal protection and released for general cultivation in 1972. Of course, it was named for the Roman party animal, Bacchus.  

A young Bacchus with the nymphs at Bennington Lake at Walla Walla.