memory. It’s important, even if you’re not pouring wine. Wine is tricky, there are over a thousand different grapes in Italy alone, all nuanced by the right chef and the wrong olive oil, or all fussy about whether the salt used is Himalayan or from the Atlantic and baking in the sun on rooftop basins. Or does it need more fat so that the wine can show off all of those swanky cool climate acids to cut through all of those fats. Recently, I picked up a weed and rubbed the oils on my fingers down by a community potato patch peppered with broken sea urchin shells. I poured a honeyed Sauternes and they smelled identical. Wild chamomile they call it— it’s just like microscopic pineapple. The combination of the two made my spine tingle. Smell and taste are integral to wine pairing, but they are mutually exclusive. Pouring fermented grapes in the right context can be a lot of fun. Guests have broken down into tears in our dining room. Never with me — usually on my days off when the other sommelier is pouring the right thing at the right time for the person that can receive it. It takes one to swirl the glass and patiently wait for the memories to pop up in front of you. You might need to haul them in like the men I see reeling in cod lines over the side of their punts while the ocean nods peacefully. Or you might need to hold it in your mouth and slurp in air and pause. Place is the key thought so far. I stopped
saying the word “citrus” in the dining room because a lemon is so far removed from us here, that even on a subconscious level it might pull you away. “Here,” is the new buzzword for terroir. Even if you’re sitting in a lobby right now, focusing on these words to distract you from the cost of routine maintenance on your car, there is not hope, not unless you step outside. The terroir of your surroundings might be an urban jungle. It might be a mountain villa. But make sure you’re present, wherever you are, or wherever you’re traveling, and then maybe the beach will incite a moment in your wine glass and in your mind. RECOMMENDATION: Benjamin Bridge ‘11 Blanc de Noirs - Underwater Quest embodies Fogo Island terroir. The grapes themselves are flanked by wild blackberry, mint, chamomile, an onslaught of wild flowers, and sweet grass. Then it cellars in the Atlantic ocean before an anticipatory release. When we have it, we don’t pair it with food, because the wine itself is an event. It pairs best with a longing gaze into a foggy mist which curls around the coast line and, also, a blazing, stuffed wood stove.
“Wine is tricky, there are over a thousand different grapes in Italy alone, all nuanced by the right chef and the wrong olive oil...”
Benjamin Bridge ‘11 Blanc de Noirs - Underwater Quest
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