Why you can’t find your favorite natural wine at the local liquor shop.

I’ve often ventured into random wine and liquor stores across the globe. It can give one a cultural snapshot of a sort. What people sell and what people buy. What’s on the shelf and what’s not on the shelf. I’m often baffled, sometimes surprised, but seldom disappointed. I mean, we’re not looking for King Tut’s tomb in Flower Mound, Texas.

What intrigues me about any selection one finds in their local liquor store is the polarity between what the buyer thinks will sell and what some of us folks want to see in the store because it personally resonates with us. And I have to say, natural wine and the selection, or lack thereof, can offer a sociological cautionary tale, here in the bowels of America.

Asprinio - a Ramble, a Recollection, a Revelation

“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” – George R.R. Martin

In my den, on an oak table, bottles of wine are lined up to be tasted. Wine from Sicily, from Chile, from Napa Valley, waiting. I should open them, taste them, make notes and find a way to tell readers what they’re like. But a newly aroused narrative has jumped the queue, an anamnesis, long ago filed and forgotten. And cadaver-like, it pops up, resurfaces, and appeals for its story to be told, before it is consigned once again to oblivion on the battlefield of memory.