Sacred Stones

The Centuries Old Story of the Sacred Stones





























Published on: Jan 8, 2017, by Alex Cwalinski     












 What was once a beautiful 12th Century monastery in Spain, ended up in a pile of rubble in California. In the latest episode of Go the Travel Podcast, we explore the mystery of the Sacred Stones.














A photo posted by Go The Travel Podcast (@gothetravelpodcast) on Jan 7, 2017 at 12:23pm PST

The image above depicts the Château de clos de Vougeot vineyard in France. The building in the background was once a Cistercian Monastery that housed monks for hundreds of years. This particular site is one of the earliest known places where monks began wine making.
Today, Cistercian Trappist Monks still make wine, and they even practice the discipline of Silence, meaning they only speak when necessary. They eat meals in silence, work in silence, and forbid what they call, ‘idle talk,’ except during special occasions.
Hospitality, Manual Labor, Prayer, Simplicity, and Solitude are the five pillars of Monastic Life.
Cistercian Trappist Monks applied these principles to wine making in France, hundreds of years ago. Being disciplined record keepers, they began noting a strange occurrence in their wines. Different soils and hillsides that grew the same type of grapes, were producing very different wines. What they discovered was the importance of soil composition and vine placement in wine making. This gave birth to the strict guidelines of wine production we’re familiar with today.
The current state of Santa María de Óvila (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia user Sevegi, CC License)
In the late 12th Century, a few hundred miles north-east of Madrid, Spain, Cistercian Monks constructed the first building of the Santa Maria de Óvila monastery. Soon after, like other monasteries at the time, they began producing wine. But before we move on, you have to understand that the most beautiful buildings or rooms of any Cistercian monastery is the Chapter House. A Chapter House is where the monks meet once a day to discuss a chapter of their founder, St. Benedict's Rules for Living.
An 8th Century copy of St. Benedict's Rules for Living.
The monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila housed monks who produced wine for hundreds of years. That is until several wars in the 1800s put the Spanish nation in turmoil. Around the 1830s, the Spanish government took over the monastery and sold it to private buyers. The centuries old monastery languished for about 100 years, even being used to house farm animals.
More strife and turmoil struck Spain in the 1920s and 30s. Around the same time, millionaire William Randolph Hearst was buying European antiquities like statues, rugs, and even buildings, and bringing them to California.
In 1931, Hearst thought it would be a good idea to buy the Chapter House of Santa Maria de Ovi...