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photo by @led
an analogy….
I like wine. The tall slender bottle is pleasing to the eye and the level of purity of the grape makes it either instant vintage or “2 buck chuck.”
As many of you know I have been a connoisseur of wine since I turned 21… Let’s be honest, wine before 21 was really just grape juice. As it did not have the ability to intoxicate and was mainly something sweet to quench my palate.
Fast forward from 21 yrs old to now. At 30 yrs old – my palate has matured – I am able to acutely identify a merlot, pino, sauvignon, shiraz, and other blends with a quick study of the clarity, aroma, and taste (taste being the last of the three.. ahem Adam). With this ability comes the temptation towards the newer flashier wines, as opposed to wines that have consistent elegance and stature. As you well know, desire leads to temptation which leads to lust and ends in sin. And this sin was too enticing to pass up. Confession: Over the past 8 years I have never picked up a wine that was older than 23 years, that is until recently… The wrappers of these younger vintages were always too flashy, the content and flavor was varied and unpredictable, to be honest my wonderlusting eyes got caught up in the excitement of it all. This brings us to a turning point in this conversation. A wine connoisseur is the epitome of patience, he knows when a wine will be best opened, and does not succumb to the temptation that begets most men, that is to open the bottle before it is mature.
At the age of 21, I was not yet a seasoned connoisseur and I picked up a bottle of wine that was to complex for my palate, it was disaster. My ignorance and immaturity almost caused a perfect vintage to be out of my grasp forever… Luckily I was cautious, I only inspected the clarity and purity of the wine and did not open the bottle to inspect it’s aroma and taste. With a preternatural wisdom, I put the tall slender bottle back on the rack and tried to forget about it, distracting myself with the vast array of wines that require less investment, a rut I would find myself in for the next 6 years. As my palate matured, my pick of wine did not, it remained constant, stuck on wines that were less than 23 years of maturity.
About a 3 years ago I picked up the bottle of wine that was too elegant for me at the tender age of 21, and gently perused this specific bottles clarity and purity, of which it was determined the wine was not yet mature though vastly better than the vino’s I had been choosing as of late.
After 16 months of patiently waiting, and a couple bottles of cheaper wine to hold me over, I finally found the clarity of this vintage to be perfect. And so with much excitement and anticipation I opened said bottle, and what I found was not a bitter repulsive odor, rather I was greeted with a pleasant and slightly sweet aroma that welcomed my patient pursuit.
And so we now sit, the tall slender bottle of wine has shown clarity/purity, a delicate sweet aroma, and has potential to have incredible depth and complexity and a richness in flavor that is beyond compare. This past week I finally was able to taste this delicate libation (sometimes letting the wine breathe a little since being bottled for so long, enhances the flavor). And you can be sure I did not guzzle it down without thought… rather I savored this wine with a large steak and all the fixin’s.
And it did not disappoint.
The End.
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And I raise a Toast…