Fortune Telling Using Wine Readings
The following is an excerpt of an interview of me by a writer.
Karen Dale: When you practice oenomancy, how often is it at the request of the client? Why would someone prefer it or what would lead you to suggest it, as opposed to tarot, tea leaves, etcetera?
Alexandra Chauran: I have never had a client specifically request wine readings when booking an appointment, however, once I am working if I am in a setting in which wine is being poured, I have had clients ask. Most often I might suggest it in the setting. The benefit of any form of scrying over tarot is that there is more freedom in what can be seen. For example, one can never see letters in a name in a tarot card! The benefit of using wine over tea or coffee grounds is simply that you don't require heated water, and it can be more fun in an intimate group, especially as liquid confidence helps more interesting questions get asked! I might suggest this form of divination at a bachelorette party, Valentine's day date, 21st birthday, New Year's event, engagement celebration or a girls' night out!
Karen Dale: What do you know about the origins of oenomancy and how did you learn to do it? Can you estimate how many practitioners exist in the U.S.? Is there a registry, professional organization?
Alexandra Chauran: I'm a mythology buff, so the only story I know is that it was used by a Priestess of Bacchus, which is a good enough history for me! As with all my forms of divination, I began as a personal spiritual practice and have been trained to scry by several teachers directly. My mother is also a professional fortune teller. I am confident that there is no registry or professional organization. In fact, I don't know of any other professional who practices it. I put a shout-out on several international lists of hundreds of professional readers today, and got no responses from anyone else who does the readings professionally, though two people responded saying they knew people who did it as a personal practice and one responded saying she's done it for fun. Based on that response, I'd estimate that there are thousands of people who do it in their own homes, but less than a hundred professionals.
Karen Dale: Do you provide the wine or does the client? Any recommended winemakers or varietals? How do you know if a bottle contains sediment?
Alexandra Chauran: I use red wine. I do not ever provide the wine as there are many legal barriers to distribution of wine that I do not want to touch with a ten-foot pole! I do not even pour the wine as I am not current in my food handler's permit or alcoholic beverage server's license. I've found that home-made un-filtered wines are the very best of all! When wine shopping, you can actually see sediments in the bottom of the bottle if you lift it up over your head and tilt it gently to allow the sediments to drift across the bottom of the bottle. If you kindly write to the company that produces the wine, they're also happy to tell you which of their wines, if any, have visible sediments.
Karen Dale: Do you read “spilled” wine, lees, or other sediment? Do you read any other qualities of the wine? Is there a ritual?
Alexandra Chauran: Though it can be fun to read spilled wine if a mistake happens at a party, I don't ever purposely spill good wine! I do read the dark lees that I believe is residual tannins and other stuff! Though there can be a ritual for any form of scrying, one is not necessary unless you count the very practice as a ritual in itself. The client getting the reading is to sip the wine while thinking about a topic of focus or a question that he or she would like answered by the reading. Afterwards, the last bit is swirled clockwise by me three times upwards in the glass before it is read. Sometimes the glass is overturned depending on the quality of the sediment. After this, I prepare myself internally and enter a light trance to interpret the shapes seen. The best time to do it is a full moon, and some readers believe that the moon's pull affects the liquid in the wine positively for readings.
Karen Dale: Have you had any interface with wine professionals or aficionados about oenomancy? If so, please give details.
Alexandra Chauran: No, just hobby wine makers about ways to make the wine ideal for
readings. I did offer to do readings at a local winery, but they declined. Pity.
Karen Dale: More than one of my sources holds the opinion that the symbols in oenomancy are best interpreted by the person seeking the information, as in dream work, for example. Care to comment?
Alexandra Chauran: I can see where they're coming from. When reading for a client, I do view the symbols and offer an interpretation myself, rather than having my client find them and interpret them. I believe that it takes an experienced eye to see them sometimes, although I do point them out, and some clients do see them. I find that others just don't have the knack for it right off the bat. There are traditional meanings, and I offer those, as well as my own understanding since it was myself who saw them for the client. But we're an interpretive team, and so often times the symbol that I see has deep meaning to the client as well.