If you forget everything else, keep this. None of it was ever really about the wine.
It was about the table. The grapes, the regions, the structure — all of it is just a way of paying closer attention, and attention is a form of love, whether it's aimed at a glass or at the person sitting across from you. You learn a little about wine for the same reason you learn to cook something properly, set a table, or remember how someone takes their coffee.
Go back to Cana one more time. The wine ran out, and the celebration was about to go downhill. Christ stepped in — not only as a part of the greater story, but in the moment — so the party could carry on, so that the joy continued. That tells us something about what all of this is for. From a wedding to the cross, wine playing a role the whole way through.
So here's the only homework that matters. Buy a bottle — nothing expensive, something from this course you're curious about. Open it slowly. Pour it for someone you love. Put your phone away. And let the evening run a little longer.
And if something in this stirred you, the bigger conversation isn't really about wine at all. It's about hospitality, about building a home that people actually want to sit down in, the kind of family and table you might be called to invite others into.
