Amen, Brother

Wines & Vines, August, 2003

Wine in church is nothing new (to Catholic types anyway), but hawking it in the gift shop of a historic cathedral is. Courtesy of the Vino Con Vida Web site (vinoconvida.com) we learned that L.A.'s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels sells--in addition to the usual souvenir items--its own private-label wines.

As Cardinal Roger Mahony pointed out, selling wine in the gift shop is far from blasphemous because "missionaries started wine growing in California." The gift shop offers two Cabernet Sauvignons, two Chardonnays and a White Zinfandel, each with a back label message that describes the winemaking history of the early Spanish missionaries. Beats the hell out of that sacramental vino, we'll bet.