Dream On

Americans will never surpass the French when it comes to certain things, like wine for example. It's just a fact one has to face. We may have some good wines, even great wines, but nothing like those that come from family-run vignobles that have existed for decades, perhaps centuries. Ever ready to proclaim how we do things better because it's new, different, or even more multi-cultural (see article link), the most recent claim is that American sommeliers are, in a nutshell, more friendly and therefore, by virtue of their openness, making a world that was once reserved for the upper classes more accessible. This may be true, but also true is that Americans don't like to be reminded of the class distinctions they prescribe to even though class in the States is just as important and omnipresent as it is in France. Whereas the French might make the distinction between class and cultural tradition, Americans, at least in this case, seem to confuse the two. Although I can understand how a sommelier's openness might make one feel more comfortable, garner interest, promote the pleasure of drinking wine, etc., I also understand the pleasure one can derive from ritual -- and the formality of ritual. There are established rules and those rules are meant to be followed, executed to perfection; everyone from the vignoble, wine-producer and bottler to the cellar manager, sommelier, and client plays his or her own role. The sommelier isn't there to make the client feel good about himself (that's the job of the wine!) but to ensure and to deliver. To perform. I'm reminded of eating out back home, when servers crouch down so that their chin is almost resting on the table and cheerfully say their name and act as though they're your best friend. This never happens in France. Servers don't want to be reminded that they're serving and to have to do so would be a personal insult as well as an embarrassment. I'm diverging, I know, but the point is that it's not about being more laidback, chatty, or better. It's about two countries who see wine, and the culture of wine, very differently. To know why I wrote this piece check out the somewhat maddening but revealing article "A Turn of the Corkscrew: How American Sommeliers Put Their French Counterparts to Shame" http://www.slate.com/id/2180456

The Cloud

What I enjoyed more this past weekend than tasting the wines of the southern Rhone Valley region was standing on the highest point in the village of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, at the ruins of the old chateau, surveying the countryside that unfurled before me like a perfectly woven tapestry. It was magical. When we reached the hilltop it was windier, and slightly colder, but the skies were blue and in the distance long, thick clouds rolled in. The darkened tip of Mt. Ventoux was visible and before it, nestled in the crooks of small valleys painted in rusty reds, oranges, and deep greens, were clusters of homes with burning fireplaces. The air was crisp and smelled like baking bread, wood, and clean linen. Gunshots fired. Church bells tolled, first in Chateauneuf-du-Pape and then in the neighbouring village whose church spire I could just make out. Gunshots fired again, this time followed by a chorus of hounds; it was unclear from which thicket of forest the sounds echoed. I walked around the grounds while Marc took pictures. We were alone. And then, in a matter of seconds, the sky darkened and I found myself enveloped in a cloud; nothing in the valley was visible, not even what lay twenty feet ahead. The cloud had muffled the voices of Nature. The absolute silence that ensued was spooky, yet utterly beautiful. What sun remained shone through the chateau windows so that each appeared like a portal, a representation of one moment in time, or several condensed moments, that had ripped open after decades of a comatose-like existence. I stood still. Just as quickly as it appeared the cloud disappeared. Everything became clearer, and louder, and more brilliant than before, the cloud having deposited another layer of dew on the tiled rooftops and pointed treetops. I wanted to stay up there longer to revel in the purity of solitude, of time lost and gained, of past lives...but there was wine to taste and, just as we began the hike down, a car pulled up. My moment was over, as fickle and ephemeral as the cloud itself.