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Finish Versus The World
This post is an entry for the 16th Monthly Wine Writing Challenge (#MWWC16), with the theme of “Finish”. Previous themes in the order of appearance were: Transportation, Trouble, Possession, Oops, Feast, Mystery, Devotion, Luck, Fear, Value, Friend, Local, Serendipity, Tradition, Success.
Ahh, the deception of simplicity. When the theme “Finish” of the new Monthly Wine Writing Challenge was announced by Jim Van Bergen of jvb uncorked, the winner of the previous round, my first thought was “great!”. Finish plays directly into the wine world, as one of the technical terms. The finish is so simple and self-explanatory as a concept, writing a post will be just a breeze… Or is it?
Deceiving simplicity started daunting on me. Yes, finish might be simple. But to finish something, you have to start it. And start is not simple. Start is difficult. Almost every time, presented with new challenge word, the brain says “I don’t like this word! why is it this word? It should’ve been that other word. Go away, I’m not helping you”. You have to turn that negativity around and gently convince the brain to do his magic and come with something a good story that will have the start, the substance, and the finish. Only what you do if you have to come up with just the finish? Yeah…
Well, if you thought my writing is disjointed and disorganized as it is, this will probably be the most disparate, most blabbering, most rumbling post so far in this blog. Oh well. Either pour yourself another glass of wine and try to make sense of this epistolary exercise for yourself, or simply close this page and spend your time with something more coherent (you can still pour yourself another glass). You go make up your mind. Meanwhile, I will just let my mind to flow freely…
When it comes to the wine, Finish is an important technical term. It is usually defined by the duration of flavors still playing in your mouth long after the wine is swallowed. Not the exact time, but an approximate feeling of time the aftertaste, the flavors are still present – short, medium, long. Finish is also identified with prevailing flavors and how those are changing. The finish can start as fruity, and slowly change into tannic. Or it can be only acidic, for instance, or only tannic (think of a young Barolo). The winemaker doesn’t have direct control over the wine’s finish – a lot of this simply a mind game. Same as for the taste of wine, there is no universal truth to the duration of the finish – some people don’t like the lingering aftertaste, and some are quite opposite. Which side are you on?
Like Whiskey? Which do you prefer – Sherry Cask Finish or Port Cask? Or may be Burgundian? In the world of whiskey, Finish has yet another technical meaning. It is not only an aftertaste. After an aging process in some standard type of casks, let’s say an American oak, Whiskey is often finished in the specific types of casks to impart the additional complexity – old Sherry casks, or Port, or Madeira, or Burgundy… Balvenie Doublewood, anyone? Or do you prefer Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban?
Bored to death with that technical stuff and can’t wait for it to finish? No problems. The wine is simply one of the most important life’s beverages, so let’s just talk about life.
Let me actually put you, dear reader, in a spotlight, and ask you a simple question – is finish a good thing, or is it a bad thing? Yes, we can’t wait for the useless meeting to finish. We can’t wait for the uncle Jack to finish his visit and leave, as he is so annoying. We can’t wait for the boring performance to finish, so we can go home. We can’t wait for the baby to finish crying, so we can finally get a moment of solitude. We can’t wait for the pain to finish and disappear, any pain.
But then on another side, raise your hand if you ever wanted that exciting Hawaiian vacation to finish? Yeah, sure, especially if you get a week at a time, as most of us do in the U.S. No way! Or do you actually want the great evening with a dear friend to finish? No! We don’t want the great book to ever finish. We don’t want a great TV series to finish.
The finish is an enigma. We both want it and we don’t. The finish never comes on time. The finish never comes fast enough. And finish comes so unexpectedly early. Think of that bottle of 1982 Bordeaux or 1964 Rioja – can you believe we already finished the bottle? What do you mean that was the last bottle??? We already finished the case? What do you mean “today is the last day of our vacation”? I can’t believe it is finished!
“Finish” often means the opposite of what we really want. In many cases, we don’t want for things to finish. We prefer the journey, not the end of it. After finishing something big and important (not, I don’t mean that Big Mac sandwich), have you ever felt empty inside, emotionally drained? We like the pleasure of finishing, but we don’t like the pain of losing that sense of focus, the driving force which got us to that finish. And we don’t like the pain of thinking about what’s next.
And so we arrive at life’s basic virtues – pain and pleasure. We would do whatever it takes to avoid pain. And we would anything we can to gain pleasure. There is essentially nothing else to the life outside of these two basic concepts of pain and pleasure – no, unfortunately, I didn’t come up with that, some other smart folks did.
After the pleasure of finish comes the pain of the start. But start we must, as standing still we will not gain us any pleasure, and this is not what we want, aren’t we? Okay, I hear you – it is time to finish this post. And I will let you ponder at the simplicity of a beautiful thing called life.
To the finishes and starts of our lives! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Blog Awards, #MWWC16, Making Money With Your Blog and more
It’s been a while since I posted “Wednesday Meritage”, the wine world news potpourri, which used to come out like a clockwork every Wednesday. Well, anyway, there are many things I want to share, so the Meritage it is.
Let me start with the Wine Blog Awards subject. Wine Blog Awards is an annual endeavor since 2007, where the best (supposedly) blogs are recognized as standing out in a number of different categories (best writing, best photography and so on). After a few years of poor execution (2013 and 2014 nominations were announced too late and judging lacked clarity), there is seemingly a desire to make things right. Nomination period is now open until April 22nd, and submission can be made for all of the 8 different categories. And yes, if you like this very blog, I would greatly appreciate your nomination, which can be made here.
Next up is Monthly Wine Writing Challenge, now in its 16th reincarnation. The theme of the #MWWC16 is “Finish“, as assigned by the winner of the previous round Jim of jvb uncorked fame. The submission deadline is April 20th, which is less than 2 weeks away – if you plan to finish, the time to start is now. Don’t forget to tag your entry with #MWWC16 and share it on twitter with the same tag.
Now, let’s talk about the money. For those of you who invests countless hours into this product of your obsession, also known as a “blog”, tell me – have you ever thought “that would be awfully nice to get paid, even a little bit, for all that labor of love”? I don’t know about you, but I definitely had those thoughts. Of course this is not why we blog, but still, monetization of the blog is an interesting subject. Thus I want to bring to your attention an excellent assembly of the stories of the 7 bloggers who make money with their blogs, and they all make very decent money, at least in my opinion. If anything, this is an interesting food for thought, and you can find the link here. Also, just in case you are not aware of it, one of the pages in my blog is designated as a collection of the useful tips regarding blogging, search engine optimization and more – you might find it useful and it is available here. It is also available from the top menu under the “Resources”.
Next, I want to bring to your attention a new collaboration project, masterminded by the Margot from the Gather and Graze (which is a blog you should follow in its own right). The project is called The Dinner Party Collective, or TDPC for the short, and it will be focused on creation of the easy to replicate, seasonal menus for both hemispheres. 12 bloggers are set to collaborate on creating of the menus which will be also fully paired with the suggested wine selections. You can find and follow TDPC here, as well as on Twitter (@tdpcollective) and Facebook.
If you like spicy (hot!!!) food, and live in a close proximity of New York, or plan to visit the city in a few weeks, this might be an event for you. 3rd Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo will take place April 25/26 in Brooklyn Expo Center in Brooklyn, New York. I’m sure it will be super hot and super interesting, so I’m really contemplating a visit. Here is the link with more information.
I started today’s post with some SSP (yep, the Shameless Self Promotion), and I want to finish with the same. I want to make sure you know that Talk-a-Vino blog has a page on the Facebook, which is used to share different tidbits of information, typically not making it into the blog posts here – wine fun facts, events, special deals and more. If you are on Facebook, and you are not following Talk-a-Vino page, question is – why not? You can solve this problem right here. If you are already following Talk-a-Vino page – thank you very much – how about suggesting it to your friends as well?
And lastly, without any connection to the wine world, I just want to finish this post with the song – again, it has nothing to do with the wine world, but I happened to like it, so.. why not? It resonates with my mood, so there:
And we are done here. Cheers!
Traditions of Wine
This post is an entry for the 14th Monthly Wine Writing Challenge (#MWWC14), with the theme of “Tradition”. Previous themes in the order of appearance were: Transportation, Trouble, Possession, Oops, Feast, Mystery, Devotion, Luck, Fear, Value, Friend, Local, Serendipity.
Have you ever thought how closely wine and tradition are intertwined? Making of the wine might be one of (if not one and only) the oldest traditions in the history of humankind, with the first mentions of the winemaking going back about 8,000 years. Some of the winemaking traditions are run in the families for 4, 5, 10 or even more generations – care to name another profession which can boast the same level of allegiance? Take your time, think about it – I’m in no hurry.
When it comes to the world of wine, traditions are all around it and also are all part of it. How do we traditionally celebrate the new beginning – a New Year, a new family, a new ship – of course with the bottle of Champagne! What is traditionally served at many religious ceremonies? Wine, of course. Even the most trivial – what is traditionally served with dinner? Yes, wine again.
World of wine notwithstanding, traditions can have all sorts of implications. Traditions can be good, traditions can be bad. Traditions can help to move forward, but they also can hold you back. When it comes to the most of the “things” which humans created, practically none of them can claim traditions with thousands of years of the history attached to them. Yes, thousands of years ago humans learned to build houses. Can we claim any “thousand year old traditions” associated with the “art of construction”? Well, if you will look at the glass and metal frames, hanging over the impossible cliffs – no, not really. Take even the art of food – wine’s closest sibling. Are any of the “food traditions” of thousands of years ago still alive today? Well, if you are a food historian, may be you would know of some, but I can’t think of any. But when it comes to wine – wine is still a fermented juice, as it was thousands of years ago. Wine is still a key to any celebration, now or thousands of years ago. Yes, we can unquestionably make better wines today – but our heritage goes back thousands of years.
Well, I’m not trying to portray the traditions of wine as something dreadful and boring, choking us in our ways. Traditions can be preserved, restored, created and broken – but the important thing is that whatever you chose to do will inevitably be equal to fun! Let’s look at some wine-related examples (time to fill the next glass, by the way).
Traditions Preserved. Family winery producing wine for almost 900 years – how about that for starters? Barone Ricasoli started producing wine in Tuscany in 1141 – and business never left family hands, successfully producing wine today. This is not a unique oddity, not at all. Again in Italy, Frescobaldi family produced wine for more than 700 years and 30 generations. Codorniu family is one of the oldest winemaking families in Spain with more than 460 years of history. We can go on and on and on, recounting the names of passionate people who are preserving traditions – but you can perform this exercise on your own.
Georgian Qvevri (Kvevri). Image source: Wikipedia
Traditions Restored. Depending on your sources, Georgia is often named as a cradle of winemaking, going back about 8000 years. Nevertheless, by the end of the 20th century, the winemaking industry in the country was literally destroyed. Well, you can’t destroy tradition if passion is alive. And traditions started coming back in the Georgia winemaking. One of the best examples? Qvevri, a clay vessel traditionally used in Georgia for fermenting and storing the wines. How traditionally? It is considered that tradition of using of the qvevri goes back about the same 8000 years – and now it came back, as a power behind “orange wine” and source of inspiration for the new-founded clay vessel aging movement at the wineries around the world.
Traditions Created. For the longest time, new grape harvest celebration was a tradition in Beaujolais region in France, but it was only a local phenomenon. It was not until 1985 that tradition of third Thursday in November became the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration day, which successfully spread all over the world, from Paris to London to Tokyo to New York. Now the wine lovers everywhere are impassionately waiting for the 3rd Thursday in November to arrive, to celebrate the new vintage and have fun.
Traditions Broken. Ahh, sweet rebellion. We, humans, love to rebel, we love to change things, this is how we move forward. The story of wine is ripe with changes, with traditions broken. Until 1971, Chianti wine of Tuscany was required to be made from not more than 70% of Sangiovese, and include at least 10% of the white grapes – tradition! In 1971, Antinori broke this tradition and released wine made out of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese, which became the first “super-tuscan” wine, known as Tignanello from 1978. It also unleashed a revolution in the Italian winemaking, not only leading to the appearance of a slew of amazing non-traditional super-tuscan wines, but also forcing the change in traditions (and rules) of Chianti. Now, the addition of white grapes is abolished, and Chianti can be made from 100% Sangiovese.
Want another example? For centuries, Barolo wines traditionally were aged in in the large Slavonian oak casks, creating very austere wines which required a very long aging time to come around. The tradition was broken, with a lot of pain and feud, in early 1990s, when aging in small French oak barriques was introduced – that lead to production of the new, more approachable Barolo wines.
So, what do you think of wine traditions – preserved, restored, created and broken? No matter in which direction traditions are taken, they are still encompassed with passion, with lots of love and passion. And let’s not forget our oenophiles’ tradition – to celebrate life with the glass of wine. I know you will drink to that tonight. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – #MWWC13 Reminder, Zinfandel Day, How To Start A Blog, WS Top 100 and more
Meritage Time!
Lots of things to share – let’s get to it! First of all – the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #13. The theme is Serendipity, and I really hope the theme is intriguing enough to see a lot of entries in the contest! For all the rules and regulations, please take a look at this post.
Last week we celebrated Tempranillo, and yet another grape holiday is upon us. On Wednesday, November 19th, we are celebrating an iconic American grape – Zinfandel! The Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Syrah wines are made pretty much everywhere in the world – but Zinfandel, in its pure form, is a real representative of an American winemaking culture. It is very easy to celebrate Zinfandel – just find a bottle of your favorite Zin, open it up and say “wow”. That’s all what is required.
When it rains, it pours. Wednesday is a Zinfandel holiday, but on Thursday, November 20th, we are going to celebrate the new grape harvest! November 20th is a third Thursday of the month of November, which means … yes, Beaujolais Nouveau time! I know, Beaujolais Nouveau often gets bad rap from the wine aficionados, but to me, the wine considerably improved over the last 5-6 years, and now it is a real wine which gives you real pleasure. I’m very much looking forward to tasting the 2014 Beaujolais Nouveau. And don’t forget that this new wine is celebrated all over the world – from Paris to New York to Washington to Chicago, you can find many events celebrating new harvest and life – just use the faithful Google, it will help you find the live event if you care to attend one.
On Monday, November 17th, Wine Spectator released its annual Top 100 Wines List for 2014. 2011 Dow Vintage Point was declared the wine of the year. What is amazing to me is that my friend Zak (wine store owner), predicted this exact wine to be the wine of the year in 2013 – and now it is, only one year later – that is very impressive in my opinion. The list looks quite diverse, with entries from all over the world. One of the interesting facts is that 3 out of the Top 10 wines are from Portugal. The least expensive wine on the list is priced at $10 (Bodegas Montecillo Rioja), and the most expensive one is Ornellaia at $240. You can analyze the list in many more ways – here is the link for you. Note that you can also go through the past 25 years of the Top 100 lists using the same link.
Recently I came across a blog post which provides excellent tips for the beginner bloggers about the content, dealing with social media, promoting the blog and all other related issues. I’m sure many of my readers already know most of this, but it never hurts to go through a refresher course – there is a good chance of finding something new. And for the people who are contemplating to start their own blog, having that good of an advice might be a tipping point. Here is the link to the post. I will also make it available on my Resources page.
Do you want to know in advance when the wine holidays are taking place? Me too – and this is why I’m glad I found this calendar, which lists most of the wine holidays in a very easy to understand format – here is the link so you can see it for yourself.
Last for today is a note of the new service called CorkSharing. If you plan to visit a winery, you can use the service to book your tasting in advance – when you arrive at the winery, you can just proceed to the tasting without waiting for it in line. The list right now includes 11 countries and 166 participating locations. I think this is an interesting service, especially if you plan your winery visit in advance.
And we are done! The glass is empty – but the refill is on its way. Cheers!
Mini Quiz Answer and #MWWC13 Theme Announcement
Happy Halloween Friday!
Last Wednesday I had a small “what is it” quiz where you were supposed to figure out what was that object in the picture:
What Is It?
Well, somehow it happened to be a difficult question ( or may be it was just boring). Anyway, here is the answer – this is “The Original Lancashire Bomb” – a cheese, produced in Lancashire in UK.
This cheese is covered by the black wax and shaped like a bomb, hence the name. I found it in my local Costco store, and by the time I left the store a number of people just stopped me and asked “what is it???”, which prompted the mini quiz. In case you are wondering , the cheese was very tasty.
And now, to the more important business. The time has come for the new round of Monthly Wine Writing Challenge, this time it will be the challenge number 13, so it should be known as #MWWC13. I know that I already promised that it will be devilish, and I had some ideas – but actually, I’m not as mean as it might appear at the first sight :), so I hope you will like this theme, which will be … wait for it…
Serendipity! I have to admit – not being a native English speaker, while I know the word, I often have to reach out for the dictionary if I want to understand the full context of the sentence which contains “Serendipity”. So this theme might still be challenging, but it will force you to look for the happy moments, which is definitely a good thing in my book.
As Jeff the drunken cyclist now is hosting the challenge, I will let him to come up with all the dates for submission deadlines etc., but you have a theme and you can start working on it now. Let’s make sure we will have a record participation in #MWWC13! I promise to be a “nudnik” and will remind you an ample number of times.
That’s all I have to say for now. Now, back to my original dilemma – Zinfandel or Petit Sirah for tonight? Grrr… Happy [winey] Halloween! Cheers!
An Unexpected Monday and A Thank You
When my phone chimed today in the morning with the WordPress notification about one of my posts being linked, I noticed that it was linked to the post about Monthly Wine Writing Challenge.
For those who might not know – the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge is a brainchild of Jeff the drunken cyclist, a monthly (or so) wine writing competition started a bit longer than a year ago. In this competition, the winner of the round assigns a new theme, and all the interested wine bloggers and writers can submit their entry within designated time frame; the winner is determined by the popular vote.
When I saw the WordPress notice, I figured that the linking post was probably about the conclusion of the challenge, and I thought that the post once again mentioned all the entries in the competition. When I clicked on the link and read the post, I realized to my big surprise that it was actually an announcement about winning of the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #12 by yours truly!
It was totally unexpected, definitely very humbling and greatly appreciated – big “thank you” to all who voted for my post!
The theme of the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge was “Local”, and my entry was almost an afterthought of the post describing great experience I had while visiting the local wineries in Woodinville in Washington – definitely glad I was able to connect the dots.
Now as the winner of the challenge I get an honor of selecting the theme for the next round. In his post, Jeff mentioned that he expects me to come up with ha devilish theme for the Monthly Wine Writers Challenge #13. I think the “devilish” direction makes a lot of sense due to a number of reasons – a) we are talking about #MWWC13 ( note the 13 here); b) Halloween will be celebrated this week; c) I’m a big fun of “Cutthroat Kitchen”, where the host Alton Brown throws his “devilish” challenges at the contestants. I don’t have the exact theme yet, but I have some ideas, so you should expect to hear the announcement shortly – stay tuned…
Thank you all again and cheers!
Like A Kid In The Candy Store…
I’m traveling again (for my daytime job), and of course, when I travel, I’m always looking for the local wineries to visit. This time I’m in Washington state, and of course, there is no shortage of wineries to visit here. Well, let me critique myself here for that beaten up “of course”. This is not the first time I’m in Washington – however, last time I was here, I couldn’t think of anything but the Chateau St. Michelle as a winery to visit (which was the great visit, by the way, and I love their wines). While the Washington wineries had been on my radar for quite a long time, there was no realization that those wineries are actually the places which can be visited. Until this time.
First, I tried to arrange a visit to the Quilceida Creek, a cult producer. Unfortunately, they were smack in a middle of harvest at the time of my visit, and said that they allow no visitors at that time (oh well, I will try to time my visit better next time). Then I tried Google and got back way too many results. My next step was Twitter, where I got some name recommendations and was given a few posts to read – one from the Wild 4 Washington Wine blog (this is not just one blog post, this is a series), and another one from the Jameson Fink blog. Based on all the information, I wrote down the few wineries I wanted to start from, and decided to figure out the rest on the fly. I also only had about 3 hours available to taste.
I had a bit of a trouble programming my GPS, so I just put whatever address it took. When I arrived at the area called Woodinville Industrial Park, and an electronic voice proclaimed the familiar “you have arrived at your destination”, my first reaction was “wow”!
How would you, wine geeks and aficionados out there, feel – greeted with such a view? A Christmas in October? Yay! I was looking for the right way to describe my state of mind once I saw all these signs, and the best I could do was “a kid in the candy store” – wow, I can taste all of these – incredible!
It appears that what started less than 10 years ago from only 5 wineries, finding an inexpensive rent in the Industrial Park, became a 60+ setting now (and there are more than 100 wineries in the Woodinville overall). Going from winery to winery, I met very passionate and very talented people, who are living through their dream. Most of the people I met – winemakers and owners – have another full-time job – an engineer, a police officer, a reporter. And despite the fact that winery is “just a hobby” (who am I kidding – it is not, it is a product of obsession), the wines were simply outstanding. I found it also fascinating that at every tasting room I was given a recommendation on what to visit next. I tasted about 40+ wines during this visit overall – and I literally would be glad to drink any one of those wines again and again. Lots of Bordeaux blends, few of the whites, a bit of Syrah – this was a general line up at all the wineries, and again, the wines were beautifully executed, balanced and with the sense of place. The local wines you would be glad to drink all the time.
What I decided to do is not to produce a monster post trying to cram all the impressions into one, but instead, to make a few posts talking about individual wineries. During this trip, I visited Elevation Cellars, Pondera Winery, Des Voigne Cellars, Sparkman Cellars, Guardian Cellars, Fidélitas, and Mark Ryan Winery – and this is what you should expect to see coming in the next few posts. Therefore, I’m not finishing up this post, but instead, as they like to say, it is “to be continued…”
P.S. Once I started writing this post, I realized that I was really talking about “local wineries”, and “local” is a theme of the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #12, so let it be my entry into that.
P.P.S. I love the power of the internet – you can link backward, but you can also link forward. As the individual winery posts will be written, I will add the links to the posts under the names above.
Fears of the Oenophile
It feels strange, may be even bad, to re-blog your own post, I know. So if you disapprove, lash away in the comments section. But it suddenly came to me, that I already had covered the theme of the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #9, “Fear“. Re-reading that older post I thought – yes, even if I’m to write the new one, it would still be along the same lines. Thus, here is my #MWWC9 contribution:
Lucky or Grateful?
The Monthly Wine Writing Challenge, or MWWC for short, had been ongoing for a while – and one would think that all the aspiring writers mastered the basics by now and can handle any challenge word with increasing ease. Yet every time I write a post for the MWWC, I hope that the next one will come easier – and it doesn’t happen. This post, with the subject of “luck”, was probably the hardest of all, and I’m trying to finish it in the last 20 minutes before the clock passes the midnight mark. This might be more of a rant than just a regular post, but you will be the judge of it…
Lets forget the wine for a minute and just talk about the concept of luck. If you are looking for one abused, misused and misinterpreted idea, this might it. Just think about all the monikers – “this is your lucky day”, “lucky penny”, “my lucky shirt/socks/rubber duckie”, “luck of the draw”, “lucky moment”, “lucky to be alive”, “lucky star”. Yes, we use them casually and often, albeit I would argue we don’t really think or imply the actual meaning of the word “luck”. Outside finding a $5 bill in the parking lot (may be a good luck for you, bad luck for the person who dropped it), the luck is usually comes to those who puts a lot of effort to get it. Is successful business created by sheer luck, or by sweat, sometimes blood, and lack of the sleep? Is successful marriage the result of luck, or the hard work of both spouses? Are the happy and healthy kids the result of luck, or the result of parents daily work and sacrifices? Yes, luck exists, of course, but its impact on the daily life of the vast majority of people, shall we say, is slightly exaggerated?
Now, let’s look at the wine world. We need to divide it into two parts – there are those who get to make the wines, and those who get to consume them. So talking about those who have to farm the land, grow the grapes, harvest them and then go through all the step from harvest until bottling (never mind selling), how much luck are they expected to get? The only lucky break they can get is the great weather. Great weather makes things a bit easier – but, this is where winemaker’s luck starts and ends – the rest is passion, sweat, tears and hard work. Lots of things can go wrong during all the stages of winemaking, and luck will not help to fix them – but knowledge, experience and tenacity will.
Let’s come to the other side of the table – the consumers. Now, this is where the role of luck is hard to pinpoint. You get the bottle of wine which generally costs $70 for only $25 at WTSO – is that luck? May be, but what if this wine is not your style and you don’t like it – but you got 4 of those bottles just to get a free shipping – is that still the lucky situation, or may be not so much anymore? You built the wine cellar, you got the wine and kept the bottle for 10 or 20 years, now you opened it and tastes great – is that luck? You tell me, as I’m not sure if that should be called a lucky accident, or is it really the result of the great winemaking and your labor of love as an oenophile.
I’m really not sure how often we should feel lucky, and if “lucky” is even the correct word – I think “grateful” is far better word to use. Yes, we should be grateful to the winemakers for all their hard work, as they created the wine which lasts, the wine which can move us emotionally. We should be grateful to our families, which allow us to spend money, time and efforts on this passion, and tolerate us literally go nuts because of the few drops of some strange liquid in our glass which we consider better than the nectar of Gods. Before we even get to enjoy that glass of wine, we should be grateful for our overall lifestyle, which allows for the things so insignificant in the grand schema of things, as glass of wine, to play such an important role in our lives (go explain the importance of wine to the billions which only dream about the glass of clean water). So lucky or grateful? I think the luck is something we try to keep to ourselves, and by being grateful we actually give it back.
So lets drink for being grateful for all the luck we have in our lives, and may it always be with us. Cheers!
Monthly Wine Writing Challenge Reminder
The time left to connect luck and wine in potentially award-winning epistolary exercise is getting very short… You have less than a week to submit your lucky entry for #MWWC8, so get to that keyboard and start pounding, errr, I meant, typing…
Even though I am not the “official” host of Monthly Wine Writing Challenge 8 (#MWWC8), I like to think of myself as the Challenge’s “Goodwill Ambassador.” Thus, consider this a “friendly” reminder to get your butt in gear and get writing! Perhaps this month’s theme “Luck” does not particularly “speak” to you and you are finding it difficult to come up with a post. Maybe you have been incredibly busy hosting your Uncle Cletus who showed up on your doorstep three weeks ago and has been drinking your cellar dry ever since. Then again, you could just be a lazy son-of-a -female-dog and were planning on writing it this weekend (like me).
Regardless of your reason(s), as far as I can tell, there have only been five entries thus far (please let me know if that is not the case and I will be sure to include you here):
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