Making a toast to someone or on a special occasion is something we all do, probably without even thinking very much about it. We raise a glass of wine and say, “Here’s to you,” or “To your health,” or even simply, “Cheers,” and then take a sip.

Toasts, what they mean and their history were the subject of the final WineSpirit seminar of the season and it was held, most fittingly, at Schramsberg Vineyards in Calistoga, one of Napa Valley’s leading sparkling wine producers.

“No other beverage is used for toasts more often than sparkling wine or Champagne,” said Maria Binchet, a Calistoga-based wine and food writer, who led the program along with Hugh Davies, president of Schramsberg.

The subject of toasts also fit perfectly with the concept behind WineSpirit, a Napa-based organization that brings people together to rejoice in special moments in their lives by exploring the spiritual dimension of wine and, according to its Web site, “is symbolized by an uplifted glass and a toast.”

A toast can be many things, like “a thank you,” Binchet said. “Last month we made a toast to our mothers on Mother’s Day (to thank them).” A toast can recognize an achievement, and soon we will be toasting graduates, she said. “You can toast when a deal is done, you can toast the cook (at a dinner), and you can toast Fridays, to getting through the week.”

‘You can toast anything’

You can toast anything, she said.

In Greek times, she said, poisoning people was common. “Wine was often used to poison someone,” so the host poured himself a glass, raised it to his guests and drank it to show that it was safe to drink.

In medieval days, poisoning was still a problem, but if you trusted your host, a signal of that trust was clinking glasses, except that there weren’t glasses then as we know them now, she said. It was more of a mug, so “it was probably a ‘clunk,’ not a ‘clink.’”

Binchet mentioned some of the terms used to make a toast. Italians say “cin cin,” which means “clink clink,” and she said when a toast there is done properly, a person clinks glasses with the person next to him or her, each says” cin cin,” and then that person turns to the individual next to him or her and  repeats the toast, until “cin cin” has made it all the way around the room.

After having the 30 or so WineSpirit members “cin cin” each other, she told of a woman friend who was addressing a Japanese group and when she offered a toast to them by saying “cin cin,” the group giggled. Only later she was told that “cin cin” in Japanese is slang for male genitalia.

Another toast Binchet said is often used on the island of Sardinia is “a kant annum,” which means “to 100 years.” Binchet explained that people in the Nuoro province of Sardinia who drink their local wine live to the age of 100 — as do people in the French area of Gers, and the longevity has been attributed to procyanidins, a compound found in red wine. “The wine in Gers has two and a half times more procyanidins than wine in the U.S.,” she said.

She drew giggles from the audience when she asked them to repeat a Zuluese toast, “Oogy wawa.”

“When you toast, look into the eyes of the other person,” Binchet said. “There’s no subterfuge when you look into someone’s eyes. Don’t trust someone who doesn’t look into your eyes. Your eyes communicate — you can even communicate across the room without words.”

At one time it was considered superstitious to toast with water in a glass, “but we want the non-alcoholic drinker to join in the toast,” she said. “It isn’t the water or what’s in the glass, it’s raising your arm and holding up the glass.

‘Cheers’ — it’s economical

“Toasts can be simple. They don’t have to be long or elaborate. You can say ‘cheers.’ That’s a good one and it’s economical — one word. You can start with ‘here’s to’ and that can be followed by a wish or a dream. I like toasts that are personally crafted, that are heartfelt,” she concluded.

Before introducing Davies, who was to offer a demonstration of sabering, the art of opening a bottle of sparkling wine with a sword, she explained the origin of sabering.

The tsars of Russia loved bubbly, she said, and “the Cossacks on horseback didn’t have time to take out the cork, so they took out their swords, slashed the top (of the bottle) and drank it.”

After Davies successfully sabered a bottle and poured sparkling wine into the glasses of a few in the front row, he brought an emotional end to the evening. He read the eulogy he delivered at the memorial service in 1998 for his father, Jack Davies, who, along with his wife Jamie founded Schramsberg in 1965, and is considered one of the pioneers of the modern Napa Valley.

Toward the end of his tribute, Davies quoted a toast from a book written in the mid-1970s, “Napa Wine Country,” by Earl Roberge:

“To a place, to its people, to its product, to its way of life, to a land created on a day when God was smiling, a place called the Napa Valley.”