December 13

December 13, 1545: The Council of Trent was opened. The concerns at stake were addressed forcefully by the Council of Trent, which also established the official Roman Catholic response to the Protestants’ doctrinal objections. Thus, it constitutes the formal resolution of several issues that had remained unclear throughout the early church and the Middle Ages. The council was crucial because it issued broad guidelines for internal change and provided doctrinal clarifications of nearly every concept being disputed by Protestants. The council was an important component of the Counter-Reformation and played a significant role in reviving the Roman Catholic Church in many regions of Europe despite internal conflict and two protracted suspensions. The Council legally established the seven sacraments of baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, holy orders, marriage, and anointing of the sick. The Eucharist is a traditional celebration of the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples. The Eucharist is the main form of Christian worship, and most Christian congregations participate in it in some way. Taking a cup of wine and some bread is how it is celebrated. The growth of what we see now was greatly aided by its formalization.

December 13, 1913: Romeo Bragato died. The growth of the wine business in Australia and New Zealand was greatly influenced by Alessandro Romeo Bragato. Giuseppe and Paolina Bragato had ten children in total when Romeo was born on February 26, 1859, in Lussinpiccolo, which is today Mali Losinj on the Adriatic island of Lussin. Paolina, his mother, was an Austrian who was born in Vienna. Bragato had his early schooling at a technical school in Pirano (Piran), a town on the Istria peninsula to the south of Trieste. Romeo Bragato was hired as a consultant viticulturist and oenologist in 1895 by the New Zealand government’s Department of Agriculture to look into potential winemaking sites. He concluded that New Zealand, and the Wairarapa region, in particular, were “pre-eminently suited to viticulture” after tasting Beetham’s Hermitage.

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Hero image: Sebastiano Ricci / Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.