Affordable Pleasure

You know I was thinking about it the other day, and I could not come up with a great way to explain the fascination with wine to a non-wine drinker. The Italians used to describe it as a bottle of captured sunshine. The French consider it the encapsulation of all historical echoes from a given plot of land, or terroir. The Germans take stoic pride in achieving technical excellence in the most unlikely and harshest of conditions. The Americans revere it as the second highest cash crop as a return on your agricultural investment. In some countries wine is the only way of purifying the water enough for daily consumption. As more and more of the world discovers the pleasures of drinking wine, the more the greatness of finite locations for perfection become sought after at higher and higher prices for entry. And yet as each viticultural nation strives for greatness, it is the simplicity of the daily drinkable wines that dominate the voluminous requirements of a thirsty population. It is that quality of versatility that creates the very foundation of wines universal appeal. There is literally a style and price for every wine drinker on the planet. The joy of becoming, or continuing to be, a wine drinker is finding the style and price that fits your personality. Then once you discover it, the aspect of conviviality by sharing your discoveries with fellow thirst-ophiles is a life-long arena of pleasure and debate. If my generation can claim any effect on the thousands year old industry of viticulture, it is the de-snobifying of wine drinking. We have shook the foundations of a historical strangle hold that the world’s great wines were produced in only a few elite locations allowing them to charge what the market would bare. We have strived to find new locals for excellence providing competitive pricing, and the result has been a veritable flood of great wines at more affordable levels. Does that mean the great wines of the world are even better by comparison, or has their greatness been diminished by the achievements of the new comers? Have all of the locations capable of greatness been discovered, cultivated, harvested, fermented, aged, and consumed, or is there yet excellence waiting for discovery? The fascination with the beverage can be approached historically, it is always present around the tables of diplomacy, scientifically, the chemistry of fermentation and viticulture still possesses unpredictability, passionately, many a talented poet has tried to explain the effects of a good glass of wine, socially, open a good bottle of wine and see how fast you can make friends, gastronomically, does the food improve the wine or does the wine improve the food. The only way to truly answer any of these queries is to get out there and keep planting, experimenting, and tasting. Drink well and stay fascinated my friends.