written by Michael Oudyn
I first heard the story of Santa Nino, the charming Georgian wine saint, over a nice glass of Georgian wine at a wine-tourism convention in Umbria . Back in Barcelona my Georgian friend Nata Samushia enthusiastically confirmed the basic story and filled in a few details.
The consensus hagiography goes something like this. Santa Nino was from Cappadoccia, in Turkey. While in a religious trance the Virgin Mary gave her a double mission: convert Georgia to Christianity and introduce the Georgians to wine. She also gave her a cross made out of grapevines. Once out of the trance the future santa secured the cross with a lock of her own hair, forming “a living cross” of grapevine and human hair. Once in Georgia she converted the Queen to Christianity. But King Mirian III refused to give up his paganism and was on the point of persecuting the Christians until he was struck with blindness and “lost in darkness ” while on a hunting trip. He prayed to “Nino’s God” and “the light returned.” He (more…)