Wine

I used to have to pretend a great enthusiasm for wine. I had to tout the merits of one over another for many years, attending wine seminars and secretly not smelling the saffron and mango accents so enthusiastically noted by the Veuve Cliquot representative with the helmet of sprayed hair and flowing mumu. Like unsteady pharmaceutical touts, the vineyard salespeople toured the finer resorts and dining establishments, leather cases stocked with libations in hand like so many tanned Willy Lomans. Before I became a restaurant manager, I often had to work evening shifts after wine tastings, cause for rousing mayhem among the front staff which took place immediately upon closure of the kitchen doors. We would create odd dishes for one another’s “enjoyment,” juggle vegetables, make out in the break room, and pretend to nearly drop enormous platters of high end dishes, sending the chefs into near seizures.

In the Huunsruck one summer with my best friend, we took a driving trip along the idyllic Mosel River. We were heading to Frankfurt where we would park our car and take a train through France and Spain. We stopped at a small winery in a gingerbread village, little more than a stone house really, on the banks of the rushing green river. An impossibly lively old man in a jaunty felt beret greeted us and we indicated an interest in his wine cellar mostly through pantomime. We followed him down smooth, damp stone stairs to his cellar. No skulls bedecked the walls and he hadn’t said anything resembling “amontillado” so I felt safe. We sat at a small wooden table lit softly by the morning sun shining through dusty windows. And out came the bottles – six of them.

German wine bottles are tall and graceful, their curves more elegant and aggressive than French or Spanish wines. Labels are heavy on the fleur de lis and rich, ancient fonts intertwined with foliage. He poured us both a half glass of an obscure Libframilch and sat back in his chair, a smile wrinkling his kind face. He then poured himself a glass. German wine (gewurtztraminer is my favorite) are cheap, sweet,  and bold. They are not the favorites of gourmet magazines, and are generally considered overwhelming for most delicate palates.  I love them all the more for all of this.

We lost track of time as the morning sun dappled into an afternoon slant. We had sampled ten of his lovely, sweet wines and stowed six newly-purchased bottles in the boot.

Some weeks later in the remote countryside along the cote-d-azur we rolled into another winery, its impeccable grounds smelling of red earth and honeysuckle. We joined a group of tourists in straw hats and entered the “tasting room.” Its décor was stark and industrial, and it smelled of oak. No proprietor was on the premises, but attractive young Frenchmen in white came around with bottles of a chenin blanc which might’ve tasted much better had he poured more than an ounce.  I know, this is an appropriate amount for tasting. The tourists swirled and dipped their noses, tilted back their heads and remarked on the delicate aroma of, what could that be, pinecone? I “tasted” the disdain on the French pharm reps (er wine reps) faces, the Disneyfication of the entire process, and felt just how artificial this experience was.  We walked away from the winery empty-handed, knowing we would cork a bottle of Mosel Reisling as soon as we arrived in Nice.