I don’t know if this is a redundant type of notion,
but once again I am thinking about wine, wine tasting, the wine tasting
experience and the overall life experience. And the more I think about it, and
live it, the more I am inclined to not isolate wine as an experience separated
from the rest of life.
A young female wine influencer recently made a video about
this and in it she expressed thoughts about being out with friends in a
restaurant. There is music, there are the aromas from the kitchen and the food.
There is perfume and cologne. There is conversation and dialogue. People are
sharing their lives. The wine arrives — does life stop?
Does the music stop? Does the kitchen stop cooking? Waiting
for the person to smell the wine, analyze it, note the endless array of aromas
and flavors and then pronounce the wine acceptable for the group? And thus may the
world start again?
Hell no! Life does not stop for a corkscrew and any of the
ensuing ritual we have been told is important for wine appreciation. And the
more I think about it, the more I realize wine, even though it was a large part
of my life and livelihood, now it is in a better perspective with the rest of
my life. It is part of it — it isn’t everything.
I did a search on YouTube — called it “wine and
perfume.” What came up was astounding. So much content. So much slop. So
many people calling themselves experts, no wonder everyday folks get their
feathers ruffled when someone starts talking about minerality. Although, the
degradation we are seeing in our country is reflected in the content that the
algorithms are pushing on unsuspecting people who might just like to know a
little more about wine. It’s not all folly. There is something to this wine
thing.
But….
Does it really matter to me?
And that really is where I have landed these days.
That and realizing that a dog is my best friend. Ha!
I can’t share a bottle of wine with him. Or smoke a cigar with
him. Oh, yeah, he can sit there by my side while I do either, or both. But he’d
probably rather be taking a walk, sniffing a fire hydrant or taking a poop (as
long as he doesn’t pee on the oregano).
“That’s it, I’m done,” I announced in 2019. Seven
years later, I’m still clearing out my desk. There are still 300 +/- bottles in
the cooler. I’m not going to get through them, I know that. Most of them are
red. The weather report has the next two weeks at triple digits (100°F+). There
will be no Osso Buco in my near future. And the future ain’t what it used to
be. So I have to get a plan. Maybe sell some of the wines to a restaurant
looking for special bottles for their reserve list. We can do that here now.
That’s an idea.
I cannot tell you how often, lately, I’ll be sitting at a
table or a bar and someone next to me is analyzing a wine we are having, giving
it the deep plunge with the aromas, the flavors, the finish, the organoleptic
analysis. Meanwhile, I’m mindlessly sipping the damn thing, not thinking a
thing about straw or cherries or oak or acid or fruit. I’m just some fool
sipping on a glass of Arneis from the Langhe! Has it come down to this?
When I do get analytic it feels so 1990’s, and a little
bougie. I don’t care what others think about me anymore. But I do worry if my
dog looks askance at me, wondering “why in the hell is he sticking his
nose in that glass?” Fortunately, I have imagined that he loves me
unconditionally, which most of the folks reading this do not. Nor am I asking
them to. It’s just that, and this has become a bit of a ramble, my priorities
have downsized considerably. I could open that killer bottle of Casanova di
Neri Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova 2010, or I could have another glass of
Sauvignon Blanc from a coop in the Loire. Simple as that, #FerragostoStyle.
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