I recently read an article by Richard L. Elia titled Wine’s Decline The romance of wine is spent. The article was posted on the Quarterly Review of Wines website. The author spoke of why the print version of the Quarterly Review of Wines was abandoned. One of his reasons was that the romance of wine was what attracted the writers to the magazine. Now that romance seems to have evaporated. Elia tells of an experience at a restaurant in Boston. A couple asked the wine steward about a wine. The steward pulled out his cell phone and showed them a numerical rating. During the meal, the couple was observed using their cell phones and not spending time in dialogue. Is this an example of the end of romance surrounding wine?

I don’t believe so. True, people can tell stories where wine was involved in a setting that was dull and unromantic. However, there are also stories today where wine is shared by passionate people who love wine, food and friends. Here is my tale that may help Elia not give up hope. We were visiting family in Michigan a couple of days ago and had dinner at The Hill in Grosse Pointe. My brother asked me to select a wine from his cellar. I chose a wine that Kathy and I made in 2009. It has been awhile since we’ve tasted it, and I was curious how it had matured. There were four of us who drank the wine, all passionate about wine. We looked, smelled, tasted, swallowed and talked about the wine. We have all had it before and were pleasantly surprised at how much better it was now than a year ago. This led to a discussion of aging wines. My brother invited our server to get a glass and try the wine. She tasted the wine and had other staff taste it. They were complimentary. We never mentioned numbers, just what we observed and felt about the wine.

Perhaps the ingredient for wine’s romance is the mixture of wine, food and friends. If the friends are also passionate about wine, wines romance will come out in the discussion rather than quantitative rankings. This is just one little story. As I thought about the romance of wine, I always seem to come back to the blend of wine, food and friends. This is a combination that is timeless and doesn’t evaporate in the time of smart phones and numbers.

Cheers,
Terry