On Wine
Partimque figuras rettulit antiquas, partim nova monstra creavit. — Ovid, Metamorphoses
Last Sunday, we opened a bottle of 2016 Syrah from Napa. If you know anything about Syrah, you know that it can be a difficult grape; temperamental, a little brooding, inclined toward pepper and smoke, and the occasional personality disorder. But this bottle was perfect. Balanced and elegant, with just enough spice to remind you that it had something interesting to say. The finish lingered for what felt like an eternity.
It was the sort of bottle that makes you stop mid-conversation and look around the room as if to confirm that everyone else has noticed what just happened.
Moments like that explain my fascination with wine. Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that “wine is bottled poetry.” A great bottle manages to be both intellectual and emotional. I can analyze it thoroughly – and I can enjoy the artistry of it.
This dual nature is part of what keeps me interested. Humans have been making wine for eight thousand years, yet we are still experimenting. New grapes, new regions, new winemaking techniques. The Ovid quote above says that we partly recover old, familiar things and partly create something new and wondrous. Sounds like making great wine.
My own approach to wine has become increasingly academic. I am currently studying for my Level 3 sommelier exam, which is the sort of credential that suggests sophistication while actually requiring that you spend an inordinate amount of time drinking alcohol.
The more I learn, the more fascinated I become. Drinking wine is pleasant enough, but understanding why a wine tastes the way it does transforms drinking into scholarship.
Which is why I occasionally feel the need to clarify an important point.
I am not a drunk.
I am a connoisseur.
Recently, I visited the wine storage facility where my collection lives. Until that day, the place had existed only as a spreadsheet. Rows and columns of vineyard names, vintages, and quantities that suggested both organization and optimism. Walking through the storage room was a slightly sobering experience (Ha-ha! Get it?). Case after case of bottles sat quietly on the shelves, aging with patience and discipline, waiting for me to do my part.
Out of curiosity, I ran the numbers. At my current rate of consumption, the collection represents roughly thirty years of inventory. This calculation assumes, of course, that I stop acquiring additional bottles. This may prove to be a bad assumption.
Wine is not the only thing I collect faster than I consume. Books present a similar challenge. Anyone who has visited my condominium has noticed that stacks appear in corners, on tables, occasionally on the floor, like small geological formations.
The resemblance between my wine collection and my library is not accidental. Both represent the same quiet optimism. The belief that someday there will be enough time to enjoy all the interesting things that I have accumulated. I imagine a future in which I sit peacefully in a comfortable chair, reading great books, drinking exceptional wine, and contemplating the accumulated wisdom of the ages.
Louis Pasteur is rumored to have said that “a bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.” As someone who owns a large number of both, I am beginning to appreciate his argument. I will probably skip most of the books and just drink the wine.
If you can tolerate a moderately enthusiastic lecture on grape varietals, soil composition, and blending techniques with the occasional classical quotation thrown in for fun, you are welcome to come over and help me with my inventory problem.
The Syrah alone is worth the visit.
