Sick = Suck = Wine Nerds

So I've been a bit under the weather for over a week now. But it finally seems to have died down. Yesterday I felt much better, and had a really pleasant day doing very little. We did watch Sideways yesterday, while enjoying a good Port Salut cheese, fresh pistachios, and an exceptional gewurtztraminer (a 1999 Trimbach, from Alsace). The Trimbach was everything I had hoped it would be: light, not too dry, not too sweet...perfect.

Sideways wasn't bad. The uber-oenophile aspect of it was a bit tiresome. I felt like I was listening to my wife's west-coast friends. They're nice people, but they have bought into the wine-country myth wholesale, to the point they were (in my opinion) offended when I told someone at our table "...it's not the vintner or the year, it's not about rules, it's about whether you enjoy the flavor of the wine." Maybe they drink far more wine than I do, but when I open a bottle I care about two things: do I like the taste, and is there enough to share with friends.

That is not to say I know everything about wine, or that there are not subtleties in such a complex product. But ultimately, it is made to be drunk, and be enjoyable in the process. All other considerations are secondary. Drink chards with steak. Drink reds with chicken. Enjoy that $8 a bottle wine if it tastes good to you. If you have the desire and the palate, sure, become an oenophile. Just remember that the deeper you go into it, the less different you are from any other -phile out there, from computer-geeks, to Trek-heads, to Dead/Phish-heads, to Who-fans, et cetera. You're just nerding-out on something different, you big nerd you.