Survivalism for the Shattered Tribe in the Fog of Winter

Could this be the week we will look back, someday, with the realization that our wine collecting days are over? For one, the span of my life, or anyone’s life for that matter, might not exceed the time it will take to open and drink all the wines we have amassed. For another, the idea of wine, in the age of disruption, just doesn't seem that high on the list of important things to concern oneself with. Or am I wrong? Perhaps this is the perfect time to open up anything, and everything that matters. We’re not getting any younger. And the asteroid is still light years away from impact, isn’t it?

My safe room, it seems, is where the wine is stored. During a recent tornado alert, we were instructed to go to the safest room in the house, one in the middle, away from windows. An interior closet. But it was already filled with wine. So, after pulling several cases out and making room for three, maybe four people, it barely passed as a room to huddle while the storm passed. That night the tornado didn’t make it to our neighborhood, but a few miles away, it cut a path through apartments and homes and destroyed many residences and lives. An act of God, they call it, at the insurance company.

I’m not sure the times we are living are actually being caused by God. There are a few too many humans on the stage, pushing the deity off. For now. But, like the tornado, and the asteroid, it’s only a matter of time. Oh, you’ve spent the better part of your adult life constructing a successful career? You’ve done all the right things, saved money, curbed your debt, stayed lean and ready? Well, get ready for this; because we’ve passed through an unidentified cosmic storm and it appears half of us have been smote with some form of mass psychosis. And the other half of us truly thinks they’ve dodged that bullet. It’s only the other folks, the ones who don’t believe like them.

So, while we wait out the storm, ala 'On the Beach', what would you open today, tonight, this week, just in case things next week get even dodgier? Where have you gone Dr. Strangelove, when we need you, to help us pick out a wine?

Strangelove, like Spock and Leary, are not here. They no longer feel the pain of human bondage, they no more feel the pleasure of wine. We still can. Even if it doesn’t quite feel right in these times, for some of the tribe.

That bottle of 1936 Est! Est!! Est!! (Amabile)  I've been saving for so many years. The Hermitage from 1989? The Bi-Centennial Commemorative Champagne from 1976? Probably dead. Oh, all the old port, the 1970, the ’85; good Lord, I have enough port for two nuclear winters. And it will probably survive us all.

There isn’t any white wine of any great consequence to cry alligator tears over; it all gets drunk up quickly. And there isn’t any safe room for rosé here. Sure, there is a bottle or two from the Jura, cowering among the Mouton and the Brunello. I need to liberate them all, soon.

"There isn't time. No time to love... nothing to remember... nothing worth remembering."

Really it is an overwhelming thing, choosing the last bottle, or bottles, of wine to drink before an apocalyptic event...

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"I think I’ll have that cup of tea now."

Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Stills from the film, "On the Beach" 

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