Wine Tasting

This morning I had had an experience that--improbably as it seems, given my northern-CA background--was totally new to me.  I went wine tasting.

Sadly, pictures again will have to follow, but I will try to do my best with words.  Kellen took me in the morning to her vineyard, Domaine Lucie et August Lignier, to sample some wines with a couple visiting tourists.  I'm afraid I displayed my ignorance rather forcefully in front of these pleasant New Yorkers, since I have the bare minimum of sommelier knowledge.  Listening to Kellen describe the process of winemaking and the evolution of taste over the life of a wine bottle, I felt as if I was getting a fleeting glimpse of an entire self-sustaining world's worth of knowledge, with its own sciences, cultures, and lore, and I asked many elementary questions, such as "What are tannins?" and "Why are white wines white and red wines red?"  Although Kellen was happy to answer everything I asked, no matter how simplistic, and I learned a lot, I don't think I am even now in any way prepared to give a discourse on winemaking.  One thing that did strike me powerfully, though, with my historian tendencies, is the way that wine, with its long maturation period, and immense range of variation between terroir (the earth it is grown in), vineyard, wine-maker, and vintage year, is like a historical document, in that it records the specificity of a particular time and place.  Like a historical document as well, its story changes over time.  A particular vintage can develop in taste over time, it can "go to sleep," and "wake up" again, it can have bottle shock and become unpleasant until it resettles--like a bit of historical evidence that becomes more and less important as fashions in history-writing change.  Maybe I am pushing the history-metaphor a little far here, but I found the idea of a product that can last for years, and that can grow and change, but always retain certain characteristics evocative of its origins, a very powerful one.

On a less philosophical (pretentious?) note, it was really cool to go down into an actual vaulted wine cellar, like one Montresor might have felt at home in, watch Kellen uncork a giant barrel, and suck some wine out using a tool reminiscent of a giant eye-dropper, and give us each a sample, which we then slurped and spat like pros.

A votre santé!