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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