VINO

San Antonio, Texas; I slept well, people I love are still asleep down the hall, coffee is hot with just a touch of honey. Life is pretty good. Last night we ate like royalty, on a table that opens up like a draw bridge with cogged wheels and tracks, crafted in Alaska, migrated to Texas like so many others here. I’m no authority on pasta, my Mac & Cheese mentality forgets that the way pasta is dressed makes the difference between grub and cuisine. Butter sage and the myzithra, parmesan, even I could taste the cuisine. 

While the pot was bubbling, we tapped into the vino. I always make the disclaimer; I don’t know that much about wine, certainly not an expert but I know what I like. While in Patagonia in ’05, I was introduced to vino. In Santiago I learned, either drink wine or go thirsty. For over a month, my host was one of the wine buyers for Lider Supermercado, the largest grocery chain in the country. By the end of my stay he was satisfied that I knew enough to buy the right stuff and to enjoy my selection. I knew more about what I didn’t like than what I did and I don’t care for the dry whites or the heavy reds. It turns out that my favorite was Carmenere, a light but dark red table wine. The Great Wine Blight in Europe from the early 1800’s killed all of the Carmenere vines, contaminated the soil, migrated to North America and did the same there. In 2005 the only place you could find Carmenere was in Patagonia, in Chile. I brought back two bottles of 1998 LaJoya, la Reserva, paying roughly $30 each which would have been around $90 total had I bought them in the states. I gave them both to my son who was in graduate school in Ann Arbor. He had just taken to vino, influenced by a Post Doc from Spain, working in their chemistry lab. Last night we pulled out the last of the two bottles, 18-year old Reserva Carmenera from the Colchagua Valley, south of Santiago.

           I hang out with a bunch of highly educated wine sobs who in fact don’t really know much about wine. They prefer either Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon the same way French, baseball dunces prefer the New York Yankees. So I leave them alone, take my own bottle to their get togethers. When they come to my house they bring Cab and Chardonnay which I set out for them and keep the extras for the next time they come.  

The wine last night was great. I’ve acclimated over the years to cheap wine and realized again that you really can tell the difference between great wine and swill. Not that swill is bad, just noticeably ordinary. If all you want is alcohol, then that’s all you get. This morning, dirty dishes were clean and put away; the table was clear and a new day was spilling in the window. On the counter by the sink, an empty Carmenere bottle was cuddled up with dirty wine glasses and the monogrammed cork, resting in its shadow, stirring the recall of wonderful company and a ‘Cuisine’ meal. People have been fermenting fruit and drinking wine for over six thousand years. I’ve only been sampling for a decade but I think I have it figured out. It was great medicine and emotional escape for our ancient ancestors. The alcohol buzz has never been that appealing to me but the common thread between friends, over a Mexican beer or a Chilean wine is still good medicine.