Today was a scorcher - the kind of day that makes normally sun-deprived, vitamin D-seeking San Franciscans run for shade. In other words, it was in the 80s. Even as I type this into the evening, it is balmy enough to have the windows open. A perfect time for a glass of manzanilla sherry out of the fridge and ruminations on this space.
We've been putting this thing together for about a month now, and will begin posting regularly when it goes live shortly. I'm still honing a "manifesto," but meanwhile, I wanted to put down some words to convey what Drink Eat Love is about.
Personal, emotional reactions to wine and food
There are many folks out there who try to scientize the business of taste. The notion that our sense of taste is objective is, on its face, silly to me. There is no way to calibrate our taste buds to each other, let alone line up all the life experiences that inform our taste perceptions in a way that could significantly standardize our present tastes. Much has been written about the evil of wine scores and certain critics' influence. But that doesn't interest me so much. Rather, it's the pre-verbal reaction to wine and food - alone and especially together - that gets me going.
Not to say that there aren't plenty of things to talk about and verbalize in these pages. If there weren't, this would be a boring blog, and I would have to find a different line of work! Jeff once said that wine is the only art form that is consumed by the sense of taste. As such, talking about it can sometimes be redundant, and is never an adequate substitute for tasting it. I'll paraphrase a quote I love: talking about wine is like dancing about architecture. You can have approximations, but there are qualities about it that can only be appreciated prima facie and in direct contact.
Wine as a collaboration with the greater universe
The massive complexity of the system that is designed to convert sunshine into everything we see and makes us function is enough cause for us to praise all our days. As food, we compose, burn and otherwise alter it to play with basic pre-existing tastes before we consume it. Wine, however, goes through a much more mysterious process again in its journey toward the senses. There is the undeniable role that the universe plays - sunlight in the proper doses and just the right angle; soil and water and their attendant nutrients and micronutrients, discovered and not - to yield us the raw materials.
Without intervention, though, it's just fruit. Through human collaboration, ordinary berries are turned into complex, confounding beverages that lay bare their soil and fruit beginnings, yeast and barrel interactions, other human manipulations (often to their detriment), in a wordless story that extends seamlessly into our own lives as dreams, fancies and friendships wrought over the opened bottle.
Dear reader - open a bottle and pour yourself a glass. Let's explore these fascinations together. Sometimes they'll be crass, sometimes sublime, but hopefully they'll always entertain and expand our appreciation for wine, food, and ultimately, one another.
Cheers!
Sante!
L'chaim!
Salud!
David
Comments