One would have thought that the gods had no must preserve observe of time. Certainly, time is at their beck and name – or on the very least it follows their whims?
I’m informed that Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin is without doubt one of the best watch manufacturers on the planet. In wine parlance, a Lafite, Krug, or Rayas maybe. On that, I need to take the phrase of others.
Vacheron Constantin has just lately launched a watch that crosses the bridge between the worlds of watches and wine, the single-piece version known as Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus. I imagine that watch individuals discover this as thrilling as wine lovers would possibly discover the brand new classic of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s Romanée-Conti. While I can supply nothing to corroborate or dispute such assessments, it actually appears the products.
Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus
I perceive that the goal was to mix astronomy and mythology and to incorporate applicable engraving and gem-setting on the outside. It has “16 issues on a double-sided wristwatch, beating to the rhythm of in-house Caliber 2755 GC16.” In all honesty, telling me that’s akin to explaining nuclear physics to a rabbit.
Extra understandable, to me no less than, is that it’s impressed by mythology: “the pink gold case takes the type of a bas-relief sculpture that includes vine leaves and clusters of grapes set with rubies in a nod to Bacchus.” Now we’re transcending boundaries and crossing into worlds I discover extra fathomable.
Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus
The watch is “18k 5N,” which means 18-karat, or 75 %, pure gold with 22.25 % copper and a couple of.75 % silver [for hardness –ed]. To create this masterpiece took the work of two artisans contributing some 300 hours between them. The engraver wanted to create “113 recessed areas for the 5 different-sized rubies forming the grapes together with sufficient surrounding materials to carry them in place.”
The flip facet of the Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus
There may be, in fact, rather more to this unimaginable piece. There may be additionally “an astronomical studying of time representing a tribute to Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), considered one of many founders of recent astronomy for having found the legal guidelines of planetary movement, in excellent settlement with Copernicus’ heliocentric hypotheses.”
Extra prosaically, the watch consists of an astonishing 839 elements. Certainly, a watch worthy of the gods.
Which brings me to wine gods . . .
Now, once we begin discussing wine gods, I’ve a number of pals who will assume that I’m about to put in writing about them. Sadly, I need to disappoint them.
Basin of Bacchus within the Park of Versailles, Paris (photograph courtesy Coyau / Wikimedia Commons)
The watch references Bacchus, however he is just one of many gods who devoted themselves to the grape and consuming. Bacchus is the Roman god of wine, often known as Dionysus in Greek mythology. The Greeks even have a goddess of wine, Amphictyonis.
There are extra. Oh, so many extra. Acan was the Mayan divinity of alcohol. Aegir was the Norse god of ale and beer (and mead). Aizen Myo-o was the Shinto god of innkeepers. There may be additionally a Shinto divinity of sake known as Inari. Mexico has been blessed with a goddess of tequila, Mayahuel, whereas Tezcatzontecatl is their god of drunkenness and fertility (did nobody see the irony on this?), whereas one more god, Patecatl, is credited with discovering fermentation.
Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Sumeria all had goddesses of beer: Nephthys, Sirius, and Ninkasi respectively. Egypt additionally had a god of beer, Osiris. Ba-Maguje is the Hausa spirit of intoxication. Saint Brigid is the patron saint of brewing in Eire. Liu Ling is the Chinese language god of wine, whereas Du Kang is the Chinese language sage of wine and apparently its inventor. Li Bai is one other Chinese language god of wine, but in addition a sage of poetry (drunk gods reciting poetry – shoot me now). One other busy divinity, although fortuitously not one with duty for poetry, is Nokhubulwane, the Zulu goddess of beer. And agriculture, rain, and rainbows.
Now we have a Voodoo god of rum, Ogoun. He additionally holds sway over conflict, politics, looking, iron, machetes, and tobacco – a busy god. A Cuban pal of mine will at all times pour a small quantity of rum onto the bottom at any time when he opens a bottle. I requested him why and he simply knew it was a practice, however not the place it got here from. Now I’ve a solution: a tribute to Ogoun, although many will apparently additionally set the spilled rum on hearth.
Radegast the Brown from ‘The Hobbit’
The traditional Slavic god of hospitality is Radegast, though I at all times thought he was a creation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s, roaming Center Earth (there’s a Radegast the Brown who seems very briefly in Tolkien’s guide The Hobbit, although options extra within the movie – an affiliate wizard of Gandalf).
Tenenet is the Egyptian goddess of beer and childbirth – no apparent hyperlink there! Varuni is the Hindu goddess of wine, whereas Sucellus is the Celtic god of alcoholic drinks and agriculture and forests. The god of wine for the Hittites was Teshub, additionally god of the sky and storms (right now’s winemakers might discover {that a} contact ironic). Apparently he knocked off his dad, Kumarbi, turning into the king of the gods. The record goes on. Appears the gods took wine, beer, and consuming very severely.
Again to Bacchus . . .
. . . or Dionysus and even Liber Pater for the mixed Greco-Roman religions. The latter’s origins are usually not generally known as nicely generally known as his alter ego, Dionysus, however he was worshipped no less than as early because the Mycenaean interval, the thirteenth century BCE. Bacchus was maybe most famously depicted by Caravaggio in his late sixteenth century work (or maybe the 1497 statue of him by Michelangelo). Apparently, Bacchus has additionally been celebrated by the naming of a grape after him. Initially bred in Germany within the Thirties, some now discuss with it because the English Sauvignon Blanc. I’m assured that that is meant as a praise. (Actually?)
Statue of Dionysus, Greek god of fertility and wine
Dionysus appears to have extra of a historical past (even when he and Bacchus are supposedly the identical divinity). He was the son of Zeus (a god or maybe the god) and Semele (a mortal), who in flip was a daughter of Cadmus (king of Thebes). This union actually irritated Zeus’s spouse Hera, maybe understandably, who satisfied the pregnant Semele to insist that Zeus show his divine standing by showing “in his actual particular person.”
This didn’t go nicely for Semele, who was blasted into oblivion by thunderbolts when Zeus did so. Dionysus was saved as Zeus managed to stitch him into his thigh to keep away from the blast. After which saved him there till he reached maturity, therefore twice born. Dionysus was then given to Hermes to be raised by the bacchantes of Nysa. Throughout this time, he found that grapes might be changed into wine, supposedly taught this ability by the god Ikarios. Festal orgia had been then held in Dionysus’s honor – apparently rather more common with ladies than males – and therefore the title Bacchanalia. Among the many “powers” imbued on ladies indulging in such occasions was the ability to allure snakes. In the meantime, any Athenian who disputed the ability of Dionysus was instantly turned impotent.
Variations to those mythologies abound. The legends of Orpheus declare that Dionysus, generally known as Zagreus, was the son of Zeus, however his mom was really Persephone, Zeus’s daughter (think about a celestial model of “Melrose Place”). Hera organized for the toddler to be ripped aside, cooked, after which eaten by Titans (so maybe extra like a celestial Sport of Thrones). Nevertheless, Athena saved his coronary heart and it was then by the unlucky Semele that Dionysus was born once more.
Zeus was a contact miffed by the Titans consuming his son and fired off some lightning, burning them to crisps. From the ashes emerged the human race, blessed with the divine nature of gods and the evil nature of Titans. Hey, if we ignore evolution that makes as a lot sense to me as any origin story.
Like all good son, Dionysus by no means forgot his mom, even when they by no means “met.” Lastly, he travelled to the Underworld to battle Thanatos to avoid wasting her. His victory meant that she was entitled to depart the Underworld and dwell with the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus rewarded Dionysus for this by turning Semele into the goddess Thyone. In the meantime, the duties of Dionysus expanded and he additionally grew to become the god of vegetation, pleasure, festivity, insanity, and wild frenzy, though one would possibly assume that there was appreciable overlapping in obligations.
Supposedly, and little question historical historians can right me on a lot of this, Romans tended to deal with Bacchus with barely much less respect, seeing him as a god merely decided to advertise consuming (not that there’s something improper with that). Accordingly, in 186 BCE, the celebration of Bacchanalia was banned. This was, in fact, earlier than the reigns of such abstemious emperors as Caligula and Nero.
Dionysus later supposedly married Ariadne, in the event you don’t imagine the model that she hanged herself after she was deserted by Theseus regardless of serving to him escape the Labyrinth after he killed Minos’s Minotaur. He was additionally famend for touring far and extensive serving to create the myths and legends.
One of many extra well-known revolved round his good pal, mentor, and consuming companion, and a minor god of wine as nicely, Silenus. Appears Silenus acquired caught into Dionysus’s wine and was a contact worse for put on. It was not unusual for anybody turning up undesirable in that situation to seek out themselves shortly dispatched ought to they trespass, which Silenus had carried out.
Nevertheless, slightly than homicide Silenus, the native monarch, one King Midas, took him in and nursed him for ten days. Dionysus was very grateful for the king’s actions and to point out his appreciation supplied him a want. Everyone knows that Midas made the slightly ill-considered want to flip all he touched into gold. It didn’t go fairly in addition to Midas envisioned. Dionysus took pity on him and reversed the want.
It’s an excellent factor that Midas and Dionysus/Bacchus didn’t know Vacheron Constantin as this ticking treasure manufactured from gold wants no meddling – not even from a god of time. Take a hike, Chronos, this holy trinity watchmaker does simply high-quality with out you because the Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus simply exhibits.
Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus
For extra data, please go to www.vacheron-constantin.com/de/manufacture/craftsmanship/les-cabinotiers.
Fast Details Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Bacchus
Case: 47 x 19.1 mm, pink gold, faces on either side
Motion: manual-winding Caliber 2755GC16 with one-minute tourbillon; 33.9 x 12.15 mm, Geneva Seal, 2.5 Hz/18,000 vph frequency, 58-hour energy reserve, 839 elements
Capabilities on entrance: hours, minutes, seconds (on tourbillon cage); energy reserve indication, equation of time, instances of dawn and sundown, alarm torque indication; perpetual calendar with date, weekday, month, bissextile year indication; minute repeater
Capabilities on again: sky chart, age and phases of moon, sidereal hours and minutes, seasons, zodiac indicators
Ornament: hand-engraved with vine leaves and set with 113 rubies (1.84 ct)
Limitation: distinctive piece
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