Sharing a Good Bottle of Wine |
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Whether it’s making wines, tasting wines or drinking wines, there’s no doubt at all that you have to have some kind of passion and enthusiasm for it. You could of course just quaff the whole thing down without any further thought to the bouquet or the year or even the quality of it, but that would just be sacrilege. And that’s not only my opinion. There are many people out there who’s first love is wines, who think the same way too. That doesn’t mean that guzzling gallons of wine without giving it a thought makes you a savage, at least not in my eyes. But it does make life somewhat difficult for others whose life’s worth really is the art of all things wine. For some reason watching a particularly good wine being put back with barely a thought to it, can bring on a pained expression to many a wine connoisseur’s face. For my part I have to say that ever since I learned to "speak" wine I find it difficult to contain my own pained expression whenever I notice such blatant disregard to the joys of a good wine. The problem with this though, is that I too, was one of those people who regularly downed my wine and ordered it at restaurants and clubs with hardly any thought to its better virtues. Luckily for me, that all changed one fine day as I was walking along all unaware, to my next college course. Just in case you didn’t guess I was much younger in those days and more able to hold my liquor as well. Which is why, there was such indiscriminate drinking going on in my college day life. Anyway, as I was saying, my wine guzzling days were just about over the day that I met Mukami. We talked as we walked, or rather dashed, to our next course and ended up in a bar with a number of friends at the end of the day. College life being what it was, we were all set to drown out the stresses of another week’s hard work and duly started to order the first round of drinks. Mukami, to out eternal and ever lasting amazement, ordered wine, but not the usual glass or bottle we did that was recommended to us by its cheap price, but instead through the judicious use of a wine list. And the thing was that she wasn’t just showing off either. This was what she did in the normal course of events and not a new trick that she had just learned. In fact, she was quite surprised to find us all staring at her as if she was one brick short of a full load. And naturally when the wine was brought to the table due consideration was given to it before it was approved and accepted. Seeing as we were in a college-just-around-the-corner bar the wine wasn’t the most expensive or even of the best of qualities, but it was the best the establishment had to offer. And how do I know that? Very simply I was intrigued by the whole proceedings and took note of the label before I was too far gone to do it later. And before you wonder how on earth I managed to remember the name of the wine after a night of heavy drinking all I can say is that I had the presence of mind enough to take down the name onto a convenient piece of paper which I managed not to lose. The long and short of it was that I became interested in wines and wine tasting and one day just for the fun of it, I went back to the old haunt and sat down to do some wine tasting. Nothing had seemed to change over the years. It was the same booths and the same nicked chairs and dented table tops, and it was still the same old décor. And the wine list when I asked for it was the same one that had been in circulation a few years ago. Still in almost pristine condition because no one really went there and asked for the wine list, mainly it was "what was on tap at the moment", or "whatever you’ve got that’s drinkable". Most college students are notoriously unpicky when it comes to their drinks as you can see. And almost at a glance I saw that the wine Mukami had picked that first day, had been the best wine available at the time. Other wines had been added to the list over the course of the years and a very few of them were of a better quality, but these had clearly been added later since they were either handwritten or typed out on a label and then added later to the existing wine list. That then was the start of my wine tasting life and although I can’t say that I’m a fanatic, I can say that I readily appreciate the finer things in life, and a good wine has to be at the top of that particular list. Mukami and I Later married and got separated after ten years of marriage and three children to show but still remain good friends to this day and we still get together whenever our busy schedules permit it and have a glass or two of the good stuff. She is not now, and never was, a heavy drinker, and truth to be told nor am I, now. We both prefer catching up on old times and finding the best possible wines. Somebody once said that all they needed was a "loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thee beside me". I don’t know how far that goes these days as there lots more exciting foods out there to pair a good wine with, other than bread, but the "thee beside me" part I have to agree with.
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