Sunday, August 19, 2007

Too much Wine.... not enough time!


I recently had the opportunity to attend the grand opening of the largest wine shop I have ever visited and came away wondering. Wondering about many things regarding wine but especially about the vast number of wines available to today's consumer. Everything Wine is over 11,000 square feet of wine, wine, wine. Close to 3000 wines from around the globe. I wondered how I could ever try all 3000 of them and I posed that question to the two lovely wine tasters pictured here.(Photo courtesy Rob d'Estrube) We are getting a good head start. Remember the little ditty about 99 bottles of beer on the wall? If one of them should happen to faaaa...lll, 98 bottles of beer on the wall. Well how about 3000 bottles of wine on the wall... if you should happen to drink one of them..
there are 2999 bottles more on the wall. The world of wine has become so very complex and we are inundated with wine info from marketers, wine critics, wine writers, etc. all vying for our
attention. Snooth reportedly has 1,689,590 recommendations for you to consider. It makes my head spin. Parker Points, Wine Spectator Points, everybody has a point. But are we not
forgetting something here? Are we not forgetting to stop once in a while to smell the roses or in this case the wine? My wine travel friend from California and I spent a marvelous few days during the 2005 harvest in Burgundy at the delightful family owned Premier Cru "Domaine
Violot-Guillemard"
in Pommard. Needless to say we were treated to some of Thierry's finest. What a welcome relief to sit back, taste and just enjoy without someone's, ultimately subjective opinion, about this, that or the other wine. And I guess"my point" is, perhaps we are spending too much time analyzing and not enough time just appreciating "the fruit of the vine".

"The spirit of wine sang in my glass, and I listened with love to his sonorous music, his flushed and magnificent song" William Ernest Henley

1 comment:

David said...

good point, that we can get too caught up in all the analysis. here's to enjoying our next glass...cheers!