When I was staying with my aunt and uncle in what is now called the Columbia valley, I rarely accepted their generous offers of wine. Partially I felt that their very fine wine would have been wasted on me—or when it ceased being wasted, I would be ruined for my happy-go-lucky impoverished lifestyle.
Now I find myself surrounded by inveterate wine-tasters, who are always looking to corner one with stories of something rather interesting that they found on their holiday wine tour. I listen with diminishing hope for a natural segue into dachshunds or the Iliad.
There is something essentially ridiculous in the proper appreciation of wine, such that the only right way to acquire it is as an undergraduate, floating in blissful inebriated companionship through an empty summer, entirely unaware of alcoholics on the banks and only too pleased to be foolish.
But as I am, having had no space for youthful foolishness, driving weary hours to spend money I can ill afford on too many liquids to keep separate in my mind, labeling “fun” according to others’ usage rather than my own experience—nothing could be further from a true enjoyment of wine.
