Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Talking wine


Often times, as wine fiends, we think we know our tastes, supremely confident in the knowns and unknowns to us, the preferred and the shunned or slighted. Some good friends of mine (more in America, as France doesn't have the informatique infrastructure) make their wine purchases online and have the wines sent to their home, bypassing any physical act of wine store purchase.

To my senses, they're missing out on something crucial: shooting the breeze with smart, like-minded folk.

There is nothing to compare to stumbling into Caves Augé or Chambers Street Wines and seeing familiar faces and talking about the latest tastes. If travel expands your world, I think that talking to other people who are passionate about wine expands your palate, pushes you to new fields (regions, grapes).

Of course, there can be flubs. Poor pairings, let's call them. Or a careless caviste. I'm never going to like that Riesling, mea maxima culpa. And I'm certainly not interested in paying thrice as much as my enjoyment for something I don't quite enjoy.

But when I think back over the past months of my wine experiences, I get a little smile on my face when I see Chris Barnes at Chambers Street bringing over a Valdespino Inocente sherry. (Salty sharp zap to my brain!) Or Tim Mortimer offhandedly mentioning Lioco Indica at Discovery Wines in the East Village. (Oh, how pretty that is.) Or Max Delorieux giving the down-low on black wax Overnoy at Augé in Paris. Or Josh Adler at Spring Boutique pulling a cork on a Burgundy I have never tried.

This is our tribe, after all. Tempting as a thousand, thousand candy stores, the smart friends of the bottle wait for us to push the door open and embark upon new landscapes.

It's a playground sprawling throughout the city, throughout the world.

6 comments:

Mark Lipton said...

Sharon,
I agree 100%. The only thing I'd request is that you open that quirky wine store somewhere proximate to my little burg so that I can engage my fellow wine geeks in that much-desired banter and mutual enlightenment. Until then, I'll have to order wine from CSW via teh Interwebs and continue to virtually chat on WD.

TWG said...

You're right, it's not like we can depend on the Monkey's semi-annual posts.

melodye said...

We're not all so lucky to live in Manhattan, darling... ;)

Jasmine Smith said...

Fantastic job right here. I really enjoyed what you had to say. Keep going because you absolutely bring a new voice to this topic. Not many people would say what you’ve said and still make it interesting. Properly, at least I’m interested. Can’t wait to see much more of this from you.

napa valley wine country tours said...

Oh love tasting wine like featured in this blog.

Wine bars in Singapore said...

The post is talking about wine. Good post