xtcian

full-bodied, hint of playfulness

10/4/04

While the rest of us in the sniveling world of politics-obsession and celebrity-worship are arguing over our deck chairs on the Titanic, the kind, simple folk up in Napa Valley are finishing the 126-hour work week known as the Harvest. Some wineries are getting their charges up at 4 in the morning to pick grapes before the sun ruins them, and before any of them turn to raisins. Leave them even one day too long, and the 2004 Cabernet might totally suck.

We were up this weekend visiting my dad, who lives in St. Helena and is starting a wine of his own. Now, I share many things with my dad - a lifetime devotion to music, a soupcon of charisma, and occasional bursts of profanity, but wine is not one of them.

I turned 30 years old in Nag's Head, NC with Dana, Lindsay and Chip - and at breakfast the next morning, I made the following declarations:
1. I will never eat an omelette again because I HATE THEM
2. I have to admit to myself that I don't like wine that much
3. I now grant myself the permission to leave any social situation whenever I want.

Avoiding omelettes is easy. Leaving parties when I got bored was hard, because I was always sure that "fun" was just minutes away - but eventually that became second nature. But I really regret my ambivalence about wine, because everyone else in the world loves a nice glass of red wine, especially Michelle and my dad, who both speak about it the way I speak about- well, pumpkins, the Beatles or the Tar Heels.

But the vagaries of the wine business are endlessly fascinating. The way they graft the grape roots, burn fields with philoxera, and get all excited about specific years is pretty cool, and the bizarre shenanigans surrounding the business is almost cult-like.

Whenever I'm in Napa, I go into the wine cellars and ask to hold the most expensive bottle, because I think any liquid worth $4000 is worthy of a fetish. I'm the same way with exotic olive oils, impossibly expensive perfumes, and ancient Scotch - astronomically expensive fluids turn me on.

Anyway, it's the end of harvest season, and my dad was pouring his grapes into the de-stemming machine (which replaced stomping, much to my disappointment). He and his partner Richard Walton have named their wine (RW)2 after their initials, and my dad gave me some of their 2002 to taste. And by god, I will do my best to like it.