Doug Cook, founder of the amazing wine search engine AbleGrape, is smart guy. A really smart guy; as in, instantly-doubles-the-IQ-of-the-room-when-he-walks-in-no-matter-how-many-people-are-there smart.  His intelligence level is matched only by his largesse, especially when it comes to sharing wines from his extensive and impressive cellar.

That generosity was on full display at the recent Pro Wine Writers Symposium in Napa, when Doug busted-out some vinous gems at one of the post-post-prandial (PPP?), informal gatherings (a.k.a., after-after-parties), the most brilliant and multi-faceted of which was a wine whose existence on Earth slightly predates my own, a 1971 J.J. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese from the Mosel.

The wine was, in a word, amazing: honey, flowers, orange rind, nuts, beeswax (yes, I actually know what that smells / tastes like, not because I’m a beekeeper – though I think beekeepers totally rock – but because I play didgeridoo, which uses beeswax as a mouthpiece); basically, a delicate and pure example of everything that Mosel Riesling stands for and to which the best examples should aspire. Alder Yarrow, who was with me at the PPP, summed up the sensory experience of that wine recently on Vinogrpahy.com so I won’t repeat it here.  By the way, it was fun to watch a normally poised Alder about lose his sh*t over some of those wines.

Anyway, what I do want to talk about here is why the wine was so glorious – and what was in the bottle is only partly responsible for that…

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Hang on to your tin foil cone hats, people.  Today’s discussion is about to get… freaky.  For those of you who give up on me in this post, I promise this will be the last time I talk about the Andromeda Paradox in relation to wine, ok?

You see, the thing is, time is relative.  Which means that your future may be predetermined; which means that you might not actually have the freewill that you thought you had, but it doesn’t matter anyway because you need to fulfill the destiny of the present moment because that’s the only moment that truly matters because it’s immutable.  So if you’re drinking a glass of wine right now, give it your full attention because as far as that immutable moment is concerned, you will be appreciating that wine for eternity.

Don’t worry – it will all make sense in a minute or two.  Or several.  I think.  Let’s start at the beginning.

Time is relative

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the sense that time is the same for all of us is an illusion, though happily the relativistic nature of time only manifests itself when dealing with extreme circumstances, like, say, traveling in a car at almost the speed of light (sorry, speed demons – even the latest Yahama crotch-rocket motorcycles can’t even come close to that speed).  But the fact remains, proven scientifically with astounding accuracy: time is not the same for all observers in the Universe.  Which results in interesting phenomena like the Andromeda Paradox.

Your Future Has Already Happened.  Sort Of.

In the Andromeda Paradox, "when someone is moving towards a distant point there are later events at that point than for someone who is not moving towards the distant point. There is a time gap between the events in the present moment of the two people." 

Let’s look at it this way – let’s say you’re on vacation in the Andromeda galaxy and are planning on enjoying some kick-ass Andromedean wine.  Back on Earth, one of your wine-loving friends is looking to the sky via telescope to see how your Andromeda wine-vacation is coming along (let’s ignore the fact that it would take about two million years for the light to reach her telescope).  If your friend is at her house (stationary, in Earth terms), what she might see is you contemplating what wine to buy and where to drink it.  Simple enough, right?

Let’s say your friend then calls one of her friends via cell phone.  That particular friend is in a car, moving very fast (like, almost light-speed fast) in the general direction of the Andromeda galaxy, and also has a kick-ass telescope.  Ignoring the rules of good road safety, he decides to look into his telescope while driving to see how you’re coming along on your vacation, now that your first friend has piqued his interest by mentioning that you were vacationing in Andromeda. 

But what he sees is not what your other friend sees.  He sees you already at an Andromedean restaurant and drinking the wine that you’ve not even yet decided on trying according to your other friend.  Your stationary friend?  She sees you still deciding what wine to try.  And both of them are right.

Hence the paradox: "…two observers observe the same events – two million year old events in their telescopes – but the moving observer must assume that events at the present moment on Andromeda are a day or two in advance of those in the present moment of the stationary observer."

And the freakiness has only just begun…

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A hearty shout-out to Randy and Kaz, the hosts of the excellent KVSY radio program and on-line podcast Wine Biz Radio, were very kind in mentioning and discussing my recent post on how to better appreciate wine despite the light-speed pace of how we consumers tend to evaluate our purchases these days.  The WBR podcast also includes an in-studio interview with August Sebastiani, and a phone interview with uber-social media man Gary Vaynerchuk to discuss his best-seller book Crush It – so it’s worth a listen even if you have no interest in what they they had to say about my recent article (of course, if you have no interest in what they had to say about my recent article then I’d seriously question why you’re spending any time reading this article, but hey, it’s your time…).

The podcast is titled Leaving The Nest, in reference to the Sebastiani boys going out on their on in terms of their wine brands, but I found it eerily suitable to the short discussion that Kaz and Randy had about my post.  Randy called it “the best wine blog post ever” – a bit too superlative, even for me, but I was honored and touched by the sentiment.  Especially considering that I almost didn’t run the article because I felt I didn’t quite catch the vibe and continuity in it that I was aiming for – so it almost became a throwaway piece. 

Leaving The Nest – that really sums up how I feel after publishing the posts on the virtual pages of 1WineDude.com, because I never really know where the conversation is going to lead after an article has gone live.  And I love that.  I love that I could never, ever predict a reaction like Randy’s, or the types of challenges, stories, anecdotes, questions, and insights that I consistently read from the comments made by 1WineDude readers.  By people like YOU.

Honestly, it’s the dialog with you that keeps me going on this blog. That and the opportunity to drink nice wine while outlaying the smallest amount of cash possible.

I mean, I try to respond to as many comments as I can, because the main difference between wine blogging and printed wine media is the fact that no article is “finished” when it’s posted on a blog – it’s a discussion, and evolution in which you take part and in which your role is essential to teasing out the most interesting aspects.  It’s an aspect that is impossible in printed media, it’s what makes blogging unique, and it turns an otherwise “finished” statement into a jazz composition – I lay out the framework, and you guys and gals add the solos, the tempo and key changes; YOU are the ones who really make it come alive.

So, whenever you get the chance this week, when you’re sipping some wine with dinner or are out at a bar with friends, let’s raise a glass together – Here’s to the opportunity to continue to make kick-ass, beautiful wine blogging music with you for a long time to come!

THANKS!

As much as social media wine wizards and millennials rail against established wine media, most of them (myself included) share with those ‘old media’ types a similar and mistake-prone approach to wine evaluation and appreciation.

And that is, the rapid-fire assessment, review, and perfunctory judgment of any given wine.  We are judge, jury and executioner of the glass’ contents, often within the span of two minutes.

We see this happen all the time – in fact in some cases (like certain Twitter Taste Live events, or the “speed dating” wine blogging at the Wine Bloggers Conference), it’s encouraged and necessary.  I often participate in and have grown to love those events, provided that we don’t take them too seriously.

And we shouldn’t take them seriously, at least as far as true wine appreciation is concerned.  Why?  Because every glass of wine, from the pedestrian to the sublime, is speaking to you, trying to tell you something about itself – you need only take the actual time to listen to it.

In the case of many wines made in the ‘Old World’ style (what my compadre Randall Grahm calls Modernist), where typicity of place and nuanced complexity are the goals, that message may be “Come back later.”  New World (Postmodernist) wines usually (and probably unfairly) fare better in rapid-fire evaluation scenarios, precisely because they more often offer their treasures quickly and liberally – “Hey! Over here! I’m talkin’ to YOU!”

In a globally-connected, information-based economy like ours, we are progressively programmed with positive reinforcement to spend as little time as possible on something – in fact, we’re rewarded for doing many things at once, and the more quickly we can shove them into the same time slot, the better.

The trouble is, if you want to appreciate wine fully, you need to dump the Speed Racer + Multitasking Pro persona.  Pronto…

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