We have always dreamed of WAYANA as a meeting point for those who deeply embrace the wine culture and value wine, rather than only a wine house serving wine. You may think that we are being a bit quixotic with this side of us, but our guest wine lovers will easily understand that this approach is in essence, not in words. In this respect, the place of wine in religious ceremonies, which is one of the cultural elements, is one of the areas we follow with interest.

In the Christian world, the body and blood of Jesus Christ are symbolically expressed by bread and wine. In this respect, wine, which is one of the integral parts of the rituals, came into the interest of monasteries in parallel with the spread of Christianity to a wide geography. When we look at the history of wine, we can easily see that this relationship has provided great gains in many areas such as ensuring continuity in wine production, preserving and improving the quality of wine, and the emergence of new wine styles. As an important example of this topic, we can give Dom Pérignon's work in the field of sparkling wine, which was later named after him as a brand.

It is not surprising that wine, which is of such critical importance for the Christian world (and bread, which is an integral part of the rituals), is taken with them by astronauts with strong beliefs on space travels. One of these journeys stands out above the rest. Because the Apollo 11 expedition, which took Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon, symbolizes a critical threshold in world history: for the first time, humans set foot on a space body outside the earth.

When the Apollo 11 lunar landing module named 'Eagle' leaves Apollo 11 and lands on the Moon, a long waiting period begins for the astronauts. Before exiting the module, the Houston center planned for the astronauts to gather their strength before the walk and then exit. During this waiting period, Edwin Aldrin performs the first communion on another planet with the bread and wine he brought with him. Armstrong becomes a silent spectator of the ceremony, not a part of it. Aldrin explains that he was very impressed by the fact that the gravity on the moon was one-sixth of that on Earth, and that the wine moved as if dancing while pouring into the glass.

Considering the public repercussions that the consecration ceremony might have, NASA chose not to publicize it. As a matter of fact, apart from Aldrin, the astronauts, most of whom were Christians and one of whom was Jewish, performed their own religious rituals in space. The Jewish astronaut tragically died in the Challenger, which exploded after takeoff. Additionally, while writing his memoirs, Edwin Aldrin expresses his discomfort with the fact that he later performed this ritual as follows: “We were sent to space on behalf of humanity. Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist; For everyone, regardless of faith. After coming back, I questioned myself a lot about how right it was for me to hold a ceremony that highlighted my own religious beliefs. But at that time, it seemed like the right way to express myself and my gratitude.”

This is an issue worth thinking about in today's world, where religious tolerance and fanaticism coexist. But if we look at it from the perspective of wine, it continues to maintain its status as a sacred drink since the Neolithic period, taking its place in the first of the Moon-centered rituals.