“Wine is history, emotion”…

How does one get to put meaning behind words…

How many times have you heard that wine is history, that wine is emotion?... More than you can remember. Obviously, after a while you get to understand this ‘romantic’ part of the wine in all the history/story sense and all the emotional ways. And indeed, this romantic part of wine is very charming, if not deep and fascinating.

Well I recently learnt the lesson… the hard way, or more precisely the tearful way. I am no ‘cryer’, but it has been stronger than me. Here’s the story – and you will not cry because it’s not sad, but I did because it was emotion and history: I deeply got into wine recently, however in my home wine has never been present on the table (contrary to all good French family) until 1991. My father was a sparkling water drinker, and my mother always thought he had to add up a bit of fun alcohol in society but he loved his water bubbles. I don’t know which bug bit him; but in 1990 he began to buy magazines about wine, and finally began to buy wine and all the necessary equipment. Rapidly, he got to know all the Bordeaux secrets and used to talk me through his growing cellar. I guess that’s when wine began to interest me, even though I couldn’t understand it, I was around 11 years old and red wine used to taste like pine forest leaving a rough feeling on my tongue. Well, my father loved his wines, and got some beautiful labels – L’angelus 94 (not one of their best vintage though), Ducru Beaucaillou 95, Lynch Bages 90, Chateau Pape Clement 90 … and more. Never crazy enough, he’s always bought beautiful wines, but never the 1er crus or so. Anyway, with time it’s always been one of my great expectations: to one day be able to open one of these bottles and try them.

But for cash matters (my father hates the idea of a loan, so cash is his solution), he discovered he could sell his wines in auction on internet. Evidently, wines are gone very quickly! And he told me the news. I listened quietly, felt tears rolling down my cheeks, finally hung up the phone and exploded in tears. This made me understand that although I had been waiting for years to taste these wines, I was profoundly sad not because I would miss the tasting, but because they were part of my story; they were the beginning of my passion. And I have lost a part of my history as well as a part of my future, because if they were still in the cellar at home, I would still be expecting to drink them one day with people I love to share good moments. So these few bottles were charged of huge emotions, and somehow even tough they are not mine anymore, they will always be that story, part of my wine life. I might actually have the opportunity one day to taste these same wines, but it will never be the same since the emotional charge will be completely different.

More emotions will come, for sure…