The beauty of wine from the Rhine

In an apparently benign — almost prelapsarian — setting, the Rhine is an epitome of the human condition. Scenery is rarely more beautiful or more glorious. Yet it can be equally hazardous. This is a river that arouses mysticism, and its temptations. By swimming in those waters, men seek to affirm their unity with the cosmos and their triumph over the natural world. But every year, a fair few swimmers end up in the mortuary. Their quest for mastery over nature ends with ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Almost as soon as men first emerged from caves, they began to beautify their dwellings near the Rhine, as well as exploiting its fertility. Around the time that the Babylon-ians identified the constellation of Aquarius, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates were the first water–carriers of civilisation. In Europe, much later, that role passed to the Rhine. It was the great conduit, between the Mediterranean and the North Sea, Italy and Flanders: a thoroughfare of the arts, ideas and trade.