I had gotten out of college. The war in Vietnam was over. The economy in the USA was in shreds. The political landscape, once again, was in upheaval. And while my college days were wonderful times, the speeches made at graduation about the journeys we were all about to embark upon, yadda yadda, well, the reality on the streets weren’t exactly rosy. I looked for work. At one time I had three jobs, and still I could barely keep my head above water. Yeah, my journey was in the middle of a flash flood, with a hurricane warning and a nearby tornado touching down. And I had to walk through it, get past it.
And when I made it through, there was wine waiting for me. I took the hook. I was not going to be a catch-and-release kind of guy. Along the way, anything you could name in what was then considered the world of great wine was before me. I sold it, I tasted it, I collected some of it. I finished bottles with friends and colleagues and I had some truly great wines along the way. First growths? Oh yeah, going back 100 years. Same with vintage Port, Champagne, Mosel, Rhone, reds and whites, Napa, Barolo, Brunello, and on. I tasted the drops of God, if you will. Many times. And I came away with an understanding that although there were truly great wines, there were also wines that were just simply wonderful to enjoy. Not to put on a pedestal and sequester away in some dark, cold cellar. “Bring ‘em out into the light – let’s dance with them!” a colleague once said. Indeed. These are not for collecting, unless what you’re collecting is memories. Rarely did someone coming up in the wine trade in my time have the opportunity to do that. Very grateful. But also, in a sober mood, I realize that wine was not the goal – and definitely the unreachable “greatest wine ever made” was a gluttonous fool’s journey.
That is why that TV show caused me to think about this. And maybe that is a good thing. The longer I am “out” of the fray of the daily comings and goings of the wine trade, the more deeply impressed I am with the true meaning of wine – for me.
Here's a small example of what I mean. I recently wrote a piece about a Chianti Classico, The Chianti Classico that Belongs in the Brunello Section. And even though I didn’t go into my romantic mantra about how wonderful the wine was (it was), the point of it all was that for a pretty humble wine it over-delivered on the promise that wine is often subjected to and expected of – and that it must be a transcendent experience. It wasn’t that. It didn’t need to be. In its simplicity it was wonderful and very apt. It didn’t beg the imprimatur of a “99” from any of the God-like scribes that pass their golden reeds over wine. It was. Period. And that was what it was meant to be. Not some drop from above, some sacred fluid from Valhalla. Americans, we love to elevate and escalate – everything! And then when we get a wine that doesn’t rise to the occasion, we’re on to curated cocktails, or micro-dosing. God knows what rabbit hole there is next to crawl into. I’m so over that shit.
I see these wine gurus traversing the globe, going from one amazing wine event to the next and I sit here on my island and wonder what are they really chasing? Like my college buddy’s dad more than once sang to us, “Happiness, happiness, everybody’s looking for happiness. Around and around they all do chase, everybody looking in a different place.”
I think that really is what they are looking for. Not some pie-in-the-sky holy grail search for the drops of God. Just plain ‘ol vanilla happiness.
Well, good luck – as we say here in Texas, you ain’t gonna find any of that in a bottle of wine.
As for me, what wine means these days is less about worship, less about some fantabulous quest for the holy grail — and more about seamless integration into life itself. On the table. With family and friends.
