Have you met your vinous soulmate? No, not your drinking partner, though we all need one of those, but the wine or wines with which you have connected to such a degree you feel perhaps you were chemically and emotionally connected in a parallel dimension.
Wine can create the mingle and raise the roof on the party, but the perfect chemistry is made in the combination of mind, memory, and sensation. It’s all about connection, and it doesn’t always happen. There are many ‘misses’, though thankfully, fewer heartbreaks in the cellar than there are in the bedroom. Bottle incompatibility is as common as people mismatches, disappointments as frequent, misunderstandings as daily. I was introduced to a Cabernet Sauvignon this weekend that I hope never to meet again. But on meeting your wine match, there’s a rush, a momentary insanity. Akin to the first brush of skin, there can be an electricity in wine tasting that mirrors the beginning of love. We talk about energy in wine and are looked at askance. But it’s a truth; as invisibly blatant, as visceral, as irresistible, as unforgettable as the connections between people.
Wine offers us unexpected moments; the spirit-lifting, inner wave of blood-rush to the mind. Sometimes familiar, the wine leads to our core library, our memory-stash wrapped in opaque sheaths of muslin, unbound by a fleeting jasmine on a Riesling that calls to mind one summer’s day. Or a wet leaf and graphite edge on a claret that unlocks an immense cabinet
