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We’re often asked why we don’t write about beer.
Beer, especially with the incredible selection of craft brews now available, can be just as complex and interesting as wine, some argue, and we agree with them. For the record, we love beer. But this isn’t a beer column, and here’s why: Because with wine, it’s not about what’s in the bottle.
It’s not that the wine doesn’t matter; it’s that the wine is a prelude to what really does matter. And what matters is the experience.
Every time Dan takes the first sip of Klinker Brick zinfandel, he remembers the first time he tasted it. It was at the Northeast Indiana Public Radio wine tasting at Grand Wayne Center, the day after our son, Kieran, was born. We already had the tickets, but Krista was still in the hospital, so Dan went with Krista’s mom. One of the last wines of the evening was the Klinker Brick, and he knew instantly she would fall in love with it. He ordered a bottle, and a few weeks later he was proved right. She’s loved it ever since.
The crazy days surrounding Kieran’s birth, the fun evening with Krista’s mom, the joy on Krista’s face when she finally tasted it herself – all of that comes rushing back with just one sip of wine, even now, three years later, as our son prepares for summer T-ball and soccer.
It brings back similar memories for Krista, because even though she wasn’t at the wine tasting when Dan first tried it, she knew he picked it out just for her. And she knew the first time she tried it how much he hoped she would love it. She remembers vividly that first sip and how extraordinary it was because of all the events that brought that bottle to her.
It’s the same thing with Barbera D’Asti. It’s not a wine we drink often, but that wine will forever be tied to our trip to Atlanta as part of the adoption process for our daughter, Felicity. We had hoped to find a local wine, but had no luck, so we bought the Barbera instead. All we knew about it at the time was that it was red, Italian and cost $7.99.
We had to buy a corkscrew, drank it out of the plastic cups provided by the Super 8 we were staying in and had to yell over the roar of the room’s air conditioner, but the unique taste of the wine – it goes through a second fermentation similar to the one that gives chardonnay its creamy flavors – will always be connected with the hope, fear and excitement of the adoption process. It seems like only yesterday, and now Felicity is finishing up her first year of preschool.
There’s the Tosti Asti Spumante that we served at our wedding reception nine years ago. Luckily, as the guests were leaving the union hall where we had danced the night away, we grabbed several unopened bottles and stashed them away. We opened one for our fifth anniversary, and although Tosti clearly was not meant to age – it was way beyond its prime, even then – it still brought back all the wonderful memories of that perfect day. It was also nice to think that we had clearly aged much better than the sparkling wine had. We hope we can say the same thing next year when we celebrate our 10th.
The same thing happens with vacation wines. Whenever we’re on vacation, we always try to buy the local wines (some have theorized that our vacations are nothing more than glorified wine-buying trips, but, well, we’ll think of a response to that at a later date). And when we get back, opening those wines lets us relive that vacation better than a photo album or scrapbook ever could.
Again, we love beer. But beer just does not evoke the same emotional response that wine does.
We’ve had plenty of beer, and we’ve had plenty of incredible, really yummy beers. But beer doesn’t absolutely haunt you the way a great pinot noir can. We’ve never had a beer that makes you want to forget all about dinner and just sit with it, getting to know every aspect of its personality as it evolves and transforms in your glass.
We’ve had a chardonnay that tastes like the sand dunes of Traverse City, Mich. We’ve had May Wine that tastes like something Dan can’t quite place but is instantly recognizable from his childhood. We’ve had wines that reminded us of things we thought we had forgotten forever. We’ve had wines that remind us that even when life and marriage and raising kids seems like it’s all too much, there’s so much to be thankful for, and that these are actually the good times in life.
We sometimes meet readers who say they feel like they’ve gotten to watch our children grow up through the column, and that they feel like we’re good friends who go back years, even though we have never met. We smile and explain: That’s because Uncorked isn’t really about wine, and it’s that way because wine is not really about the wine, either.
It’s about whoever’s drinking it.
Cheers!
