On wine, sunsets, and real-time proclivities
In the mercurial materiality that is my life, I sometimes find that I’ve got the gumption to read all I can about a particular wine. Often, I’ll have designs on pairing the wine with a meal I’ll be sharing with friends; sometimes I merely want to experiment in the kitchen, then reap the rewards of my culinary frivolities with the right wine. So I’ll study winemakers’ notes, click through a handful of Google results or, as is frequently the case, become interested in a wine based on a fellow blogger’s recommendation.
Often there is only one write-up about a wine that I can glean online; sometimes I feel lucky to be able to read comparisons across multiple blogs. I consider it a special bonus when I can track how one wine from a particular vintage is tasting over a period of months, if not years. That can be the exception to the rule, however; the price tends to go up and the availability tends to go down when a wine is tasting well over time. More’s the case that I’ll want a wine which is affordable and easily obtainable. As one who occasionally reviews wine, I know my readers will find more value in reading about a wine they, too, can obtain and enjoy without resorting to HELOC havoc.
It’s certainly an influence on me when blogs come to consensus about the same wine; indeed I was intrigued about a recent exercise in which a number of wine bloggers were asked to review a premium-priced Sonoma County Cabernet during the same week. While that particular exercise devolved into a silly, almost hateful debacle about blogger’s ethics—a notion that seemed, to me, to be obtusely irrelevant to the task—I was interested in the exercise simply because, as someone who might want to share that wine over a nice meal, I felt I would benefit by a real-time comparison study, one that was not compromised by time’s effect on a wine’s aging.
Then again, sometimes I don’t feel the proclivity to read read read read read. Sometimes I would just rather lace up my boots and go admire a beautiful sunset from a rocky perch. (Yes, you’re right: I do this more than just sometimes.)
O wine! O sunset! I’ll gladly go wherever you glow.
Sometimes I’ll take a flyer and, before I hit that sunset trail, actually place trust in a paid expert’s opinion* and (gasp of horror!) grab a 92-point bottle at BevMo. (Come on, I know you do it too.)
Well that’s precisely what I did as I looked toward tomorrow’s Wine Blogging Wednesday selection. Should you dare to read that forthcoming post, please don’t hate me because the wine was beautiful.
*Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Robert Parker, blah blah, yadda yadda.
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October 9th, 2008 19:27
Great post, Russ. I participated in the Rockaway project because I, too, often feel that I would love to be able to see multiple perspectives on the same wine at the same time. This is especially true if I’m on the fence about a wine, or it’s expensive. A few bloggers who say give it a try is normally all I need to take the plunge–my latest example of this is Scholium wines, which are way above my normal pay grade, but which I seem to be buying in bulk on blogger recommendations!
And yes, we all grab the 92 point bottles at BevMo–especially if they’re on sale. I’ll take almost any recommendation for a wine–once–and then decide what I thought about it.
Thanks for a great WBW, by the way. I grabbed a wine I remembered reading about on your site. And I loved it. Sometimes one trusted voice is all you need!
October 10th, 2008 21:42
Deb, you always give me such excellent QPR. Thank you for making my day!