Good Grape Wine Company

Wisdom from the Glass:  Lessons Wine Has Taught Me

July
2
2009

Wine wisdom earned is wine knowledge learned. 

One of the most valuable aspects of being a wine lover is the lessons wine imparts, mostly with subtlety, sometimes with blunt force, always valuable – a Zen master or Buddhist monk-like giver of insight into the world around us.

Being a lifelong learner, something my mother imparted upon me, I don’t ever consider myself a finished product – what’s next is always going to be even better than what just passed.  Are we ever done?  Perhaps, we’re done only if you’re running a sprint through life and not a marathon, a draining choice that presents short-term gratification, but long-term agony.  Related to wine, the answer is a definitive “no.”  There is always something new to learn, a region yet to discover, a varietal still to try, an interaction that leads to inspiration …

Here are just a couple of things that wine has taught me.

Beginning is Easy, Continuing is Hard

Saying you’re a wine fan or enthusiast is easy, real easy.  A couple of bottles in a countertop bottle rack, correctly pronouncing Viognier and you’re pretty much down the path, never having to explore much deeper than the supermarket wine aisle, which a good many people don’t.  That’s okay, certainly, but it doesn’t come close to opening up the lifetime of enjoyment that wine can bring – the most notable, as mentioned, is the contribution to lifelong learning because wine is such an inexhaustible subject.  My grandmother will be 101 years old in November with her good health and mental acuity intact – should I live 64 more years I know I will never conquer wine, and I like that.

The other key aspect is the appreciation of the flavor components in a wine – identifying “mushroom” versus “forest floor” may be tiresome for some wine fans, hard work, a commitment to understanding something that is of relatively little consequence in the grand scheme of things, but it’s really at the core of appreciation, and it takes continuing effort. 

Likewise, in my opinion, passive wine fandom, while giving of enjoyment, doesn’t give the passive participant enough context to appreciate the alchemy that can only occur when good food, good friends and a perfect bottle co-mingle to capture that picture perfect mental snapshot of time and place.

Without an understanding of the wine in the glass at sunset, at that beach, with those laughs, and the food marks a mental vivid snapshot, surely,  but it will never quite transcend to a moment in time that you spend the rest of your life trying to recapture.

Wine Wisdom: Wine has taught me persistence, to ask the additional question, to be adventurous in spirit, to keep an open mind and to continue on … to learn perpetually.  The gift it gives for those who pursue its delights are returned to the recipient 100-fold.

Everything is Funny, as Long as it happens to Somebody Else

Wine is wrought with unspoken protocol that, let’s be frank, isn’t native to a lot of people.

I’ve seen firsthand a friend who bought a $150 worth of wine as a gift, didn’t realize its perishable nature, and let it simmer in a hot car on a 95 degree summer afternoon.  The corks pushed.  An analogized lesson from the wine retailer on whether or not you would keep a gallon of milk in a closed, non-air conditioned car for five hours and $300 worth of total wine purchased, it’s a good laugh ipso facto.

I’ve also been witness to a tasting room crowd where a very loud guy went on and on about how good the “Mer-Lot” was, pronouncing it with a hard “t.”

And, I’ve been at a holiday party where the hostess prepared a glass of red wine for a guest, in an appropriate glass, on the rocks with ice.

Wine Wisdom: Wine has taught me that for all of its seriousness, enjoying the light and absurd moments can be fun, and bring welcome perspective to laughing at ourselves, not always an easy task – a task made easier and given as perspective especially if we’re enjoying a harmless and discrete chuckle at the expense of someone else.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

We’re truly living in a golden age of wine.  Aside from a wine that may be a bit “hot” or have externally caused issues from a bad cork, etc. how often is a bottle of wine truly, technically undrinkable?  In the highest probability circumstance, maybe 1 bottle in a 100?  I like those odds.

And, in addition, I may never have a DRC, a Chateau d’Yquem, or a 1st Growth ’82 Bordeaux with regularity, but in the grand scheme of things, I will have tried dozens, perhaps, 100s of bottles that were sublime at the moment, and especially in my mind’s eye.

Wine Wisdom:  Wine has taught me to appreciate what I have, my experiences earned, and to not regret the things I do not have.

Overall, there are hundreds of lessons that wine teaches you, but in this day and age, with the crush of information, the news that is one button push away from invading our thoughts and anxieties, realizing that wine helps you be a lifelong learner, to be lighthearted while appreciating and savoring the small blessings in our life seems like a powerful antidote to our times.

Postscript

This blog was inspired in part by a recent post at Under the Grape Tree where writer Kevin muses on wine as a “life condiment” a turn of phrase I really like.

In addition, wine writer Elliott Essman is completing a wine book called, Using Wine to Make Sense of the World.  It will be published in the fall.  You can join his Facebook fan page to keep up to date on the books progress.

What I Wrote About a Year Ago

Vin de Napkin - Naughty Nurse

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