Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.

“Nice title… wonder how he’s going to get himself out of this one?”

Trust me, it’s all gonna make sense in a minute or two. I think.

See, it all started with Thanksgiving last week.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Not off to a good start there, chico. Mind if I call you chico?”

Not at all. Anyway, Thanksgiving is traditionally a time for us to stop and – duh – give thanks for that in our lives for which we are most grateful. Now, wine has been very, very good to me and it got me thinking about how grateful I am to have wine in my life. And it got me thinking about Spider-Man. And miracles.

Let’s start with the miracles…

The Miracles
The Universe is an unimaginably big place – conventional wisdom is that the observable Universe is at least 10 billion light years in radius, and is probably much bigger. How big is that? Our entire solar system is 42,700,000,000,000 times smaller than the universe.

And, it’s really, really old. Like, at least 12 billion years old. How old is that? If you mapped out the history of the Universe into 1 Earth year, all of recorded human history would occupy approximately the last 13 seconds of that year.

Note that none of this either supports or excludes the possibility that the Universe is in some way intelligent. I say this because the cosmological parameters needed to eventually support life in the Universe were, to the best of our collective knowledge, set at the instant of the Big Bang. As we understand it today, the precision needed within those parameters (and their subsequent margin of error) to support life is so small that the odds against it happening are simply huge.

“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

Throw in the fact that the matter created in the Big Bang eventually combined in some way to create YOU, and you have even greater odds against you even being here to read this blog post.

The fact that you exist at all is a cosmological miracle on a grand scale.

It sure doesn’t look that way when you analyze the odds from, say, the point of your grandparents – or even the point of Homo Sapiens – first hitting the Universal timeline. But when you look at the broader context, that of the history of the Universe, well you have to admit that if you’d been around in a parallel Universe during our Big Bang there’s no way you’d have put any money down on it working out.

Yet work out it did.

How even more miraculous that we came to invent wine, and that a glass wine has come to be in front of you at any given moment.

Which brings us to Spider-Man.

Spider-Man
All of this Zen Wine musing had me recalling a Spider-Man comic (geek alert!!) I read many moons ago, in which Spider-Man has defeated an enemy in Peru (long story… just go with it). After his battle he meets up with a sort of shaman/mystic, who at one point tells him (and I’m paraphrasing here): “You can say that the Sun will rise tomorrow because of the rotation of the Earth, the orbit of the planet and the Sun and the solar system’s movement through the Universe. I say the Sun will rise tomorrow because it is destined to do so. Do you see a conflict?”

Spidey’s response: “I don’t at that.”

You can say that I will come to enjoy my next wine because of chaos theory, benevolent divine intervention, or the destiny of the entire Universe.

I don’t see a conflict between any of those.

All I see is a miracle, and man, I’m really, really grateful for it. See, told you it would all make sense! Sort of.

Cheers!
(images: photobucket.com)

This past week, I finally got around to watching Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture.”

For the 7 or 8 of you that have yet to see this (I’ve got a 4-month-old at the house… what’s your excuse?), the video of the Pausch’s inspirational lecture has been viewed by an estimated 6 million+ people. Pausch’s topic was fulfilling your childhood dreams, made more poignant and powerful by the fact that a) he had fulfilled most of his childhood dreams, and b) he was diagnosed with terminal cancer before giving the lecture.

Pausch died last month, at the age of 47. His lecture is amazing, and it got me thinking: if I were to deliver a lecture, knowing it to be my last before I died, what would I talk about? Then I thought about it another way: Why should my last lecture be special? Why can’t all my lectures be special? Why can’t I just live as if every day, and every event, were my last?

Then I wouldn’t have to do anything differently than I would on any other day. I’d rather have someone be able to show a video of any random moment of me spending time with my daughter, and that be a snapshot of the totality of me as a person, then have to worry about topping myself for some reason before I head off to the great gig in the sky.

In other words, I’d like to have my life be the testament to, well, my life.

What the hell does this have to do with wine? Glad you asked! Assuming you’re still reading, that is. You are? Great! Then allow me to explain…

I’ve written before about the role of mindfulness in heightening your wine appreciation. Basically, give a wine a moment or two of your pure, unadulterated concentration, and it will reveal its entire world to you.

Now, imagine if you treated every glass of wine that you have from here on out as if it might be your last glass. Man, you’d really give it some concentration then.

Sip on that for a while – you might find it brings a greater appreciation of wine into your life.

Even if it’s a glass of Yellowtail.

Check out more ‘Zen Wine’ non-action by the 1WineDude.

Cheers!
(images: rosalynclare.files.wordpress.com, zen-life.org)

What makes a wine great?

I don’t mean great as in “pretty tasty, I like it, it’s got a nice beat and I can dance to it” great.

I mean eye-popping, life-changing, “the heavens opened ancient mythology style” great.

That’s a tough question, even for those of us in the wine biz, because so few of us have actually tasted a truly great wine.

I’m going to give you my view of what makes a wine great – and it’s probably not what you’d think.

But before I do that, I need to set the record straight about how I think greatness is judged in the first place…

Winemaking is more art than science. If you disagree with me on this one, then I invite you to read my previous post on the subject.

If you still disagree with me, then you might want to skip the rest of this article entirely, because the rest of this post will be drawing parallels between winemaking and art. For those of you who couldn’t stand art class, I apologize in advance!

Personal preference doesn’t matter. I don’t like pilsner beer. Does that mean that all pilsners are no good, or that they can never achieve greatness? I love the works of Picasso. Does that mean all of Picasso’s art is great? When you stop to think about it, it’s obvious that greatness has nothing to do with any one individual’s personal preferences (not matter how highly that individual might regard his/her own opinion…).

The light red wines of Medieval times would no doubt seem watery and insipid to our Parker-ized palates.

Collective preference does matter. The collective consciousness of a given society and its era in time does matter when it comes to greatness. This is borne out time and time again in art history – and in the annals of wine history as well. If you flip through the pages of Ancient Wine, or the superb Story of Wine, you will learn that the wine of the ancient Greeks and Romans likely would be too cloyingly sweet for our tastes today. The light red wines of Medieval times would no doubt have seemed watery and insipid to our Parker-ized palates. Times make the society; and societies make the collective decision on greatness.

Material matters – but not that much. Is a Picasso painting “greater” than a Picasso sculpture, just because the medium is different? Probably not. In wine, while some grapes (such as Concord) may never make truly great wine, it’s pure folly to discount any one of the “noble” grape varieties when it comes to greatness – all of them are capable of making a great wine. Unless you mixed them altogether. That would probably suck.

Is a Picasso painting “greater” than a Picasso sculpture, just because the medium is different?

Nature matters – and so does nurture. Old World winemakers will tell you that terroir – the nature and place from whence a grape came – is the determinant of whether or not the resulting wine can be great; the winemaker’s job is to interfere as little as possible with the natural process. New World winemakers will tell you that it is trough savvy vineyard practices and the use of modern technology in the wine cellar that greatness is achieved. They’re both right – start with a great pedigree, and finish with great care, and a wine may just achieve greatness.

So how can we measure a wine’s “greatness?”

In The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil offers 5 criteria that can be used to determine if a wine is great. Her take is as good as any other, so I’ll share a synopsis of it here:

1. Distinct varietal character - a wine exemplifies the true characteristics of its grape(s)
2. Integration – the wine’s components (alcohol, acidity, fruit, etc.) are harmonious
3. Expressiveness – the aromas & flavors are clear & focused
4. Complexity – like an artwork, the wine keeps you coming back, discovering more nuances each time
5. Connectedness – the wine embodies qualities that link it to the specific place where it was made.

Not a bad list at all. I think it’s missing an important element, however. To me, the most important.

So I’d like to add something to Karen’s fantastic list: Great wine is like great art, or a peaceful meditation, or even a great life lived to its potential with humility and true grace.

Great wine is a Mystery.

By mystery, I don’t mean a problem to be rectified, a secret to be revealed, or a puzzle to be solved. I mean a Mystery like the seat of human consciousness in the brain, the origin of life, the feeling of love, and the nature of pure being.

Great wine is a true Mystery, because it is greater than the sum of its parts in a way that synthesizes our mental, physical, and spiritual selves; connecting us to ourselves, to each other, and to a place and time, and to the earth. The greater the wine, the less likely it is that any words will be capable of adequately describing the experience.

Great wine is a tiny miracle of the universe that cannot ever be fully explained.

Now, before you all start sending me lava lamps, crystals, or patchouli, remember the words of Albert Einstein – “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.“

Which one would you pick?

Cheers!

(images: winefront.com.au, clevelandart.org, restaurantlacaravella.com, macedonian-heritage.gr)

(images: all from Joe’s house!)

Although I was raised in the shadow of Roman Catholicism, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a religious man.

In fact, after attending an Oblate grade school, a Franciscan high school, and a Jesuit university for undergrad, I ended up totally religiously-confused. Not exactly a poster-child for American religious education.

Still, despite being (more-or-less) totally religious-averse, I would consider myself a spiritual person. Over the last few years, my wife has introduced me to Zen and Buddhist principles that we have tried to integrate into our lives, with some great results. I don’t claim to understand any of the universe’s mysteries, but there is no denying (for me, at least) the powerful & moving experiences of communion I’ve felt when meditating.

“This small word – witnessing - contains the whole of spirituality.” – Osho

And by “meditating” I don’t just mean the familiar image we have of someone sitting on a pillow silently exploring the depths of their witnessing (though doing that is great and I’d highly recommend it to anyone). I mean going about your daily life activities and truly witnessing each moment of your life – trying to be “in the zone” and really living, treating every action you take as sacred – whether you are washing the dishes, walking the dog, negotiating an important business deal, playing music…

…Or tasting wine.

It’s by truly being meditative when tasting that we can most maximize both our enjoyment of wine and our wine appreciation skills…

I’ve written a few “glasses of zen” articles in the past, but I’ve never really explored how the simple act of witnessing can enhance the enjoyment of wine.

Some of the greatest noses in the wine business follow a similar “witnessing” tasting method, though they themselves may not call it meditation.

Take the love-him-or-leave-him wine critic Robert Parker, for example:

“When I put my nose in a glass, it’s like tunnel vision. I move into another world, where every bit of mental energy is focused on that wine.” - Robert M. Parker, Jr.

A similar tasting ethos has been expressed (quite eloquently) by the venerable Christie’s wine critic Michael Broadbent:

“You do not need to be an expert, or even that interested in wine to enjoy drinking it. But tasting is not the same as drinking… The important point is that there is a reason for every colour, smell and taste. Every facet of a wine’s effect on our senses… is meaningful. Exploring and understanding these facets helps us to appreciate a wine more fully.” – from Winetasting, by Michael Broadbent

Those are some serious big-league wine-tasters, whose opinions have been known to make-or-break sales for virtually any wine that they happen to taste. So, you don’t just need to take Dude’s word for it!

I could wax philosophical on how the quality of our focus may or may not increase the quality of our wine appreciation. But I’ll leave that one to the book Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine which has already explored it in great detail.

Instead, I will simply leave you with another quote, and then request that you do just one simple thing. Here’s the quote:

“Meditation is not something that we just do for 20 or 40 minutes every morning and then forget about. Meditation involves a principle of awareness that you can practice in every moment of your life.” – Wildmind.org

Here’s the simple request:
The next time that try a glass of wine, really taste it, don’t just drink it. Don’t think, just taste.

If you find yourself marveling at how all the disparate aspects of nature have come together to allow you this moment of real, focused living – connecting you to the small miracle of how the fruit of a wild plant can end up producing the complex and pleasure-giving drink in the glass in front of you – well, my friend, then you “get it.”

Nothing left to do but sit back, relax, and offer up a small prayer of gratitude to the universe for the gift you have received.

Well, that and finish your glass, of course.

Cheers!