In Vino...

I once casually drank a bottle of 1998 Barolo wine. The sanctity of this esteemed vintage slipped past my lips and palate only to quickly quench my thirsty desire to sustain my immature buzz. I had stumbled across the bottle in my parents basement hidden between the forgotten pool table, cobwebs, and WWII military helmets collecting dust. I don't even think I looked at the label and instead hustled upstairs relieved that "there was still wine in the house." I was 21 and at age where quantity took precedence over quality. Barolo was on par with a case of Bud Light, when in reality it was the foie de gras of booze. My then boyfriend and I - both ignorant of taste guzzled it down with buttery popcorn over Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (attempting to imitate Sean Connery's accent - I credit the Barolo here). 

 

The next morning my Mom informed me that that lonely bottle was in fact my father's prized possession. I gasped knowing that my Dad hardly bought himself anything nice aside from the cigars that perfumed his car and at one time my all girl's boarding school dorm. My guilty hangover prompted me to look more deeply into this Barolo matter. Soon, I began researching the "Italian king of wines" slowly discovering its true market and historical value, while I cringed at my Dad's potential reaction. Fortunately for me, he barks but never bites and quickly forgave me and now I buy him a Barolo every year for Christmas or his birthday.

 Four years later, I found myself ironically attending graduate school near Barolo headquarters in Piedmont, Italy. I had an entered a new phase of life - one inspired by taste and driven by a thirst to study why and how it is so inextricable to our lives. 

 At 21, I was still a Philistine half-heartedly making "gourmet meals" and stocking up on cheap French wine from the local Harris Teeter. My palate was ignorant and sullied by the weight of collegiate excesses. The Barolo incident was my first experience of true taste, but one whose significance had gone unnoticed. Interestingly, it had taken place during my last semester of college foreshadowing the exit of  my semi-destructive phase of gross quantity ushering in a new era, one rooted in the simple elegance of fine food and wine. Barolo had been humble that evening and I would argue, a tad sly, coyly hidden in our murky basement as it patiently waiting to be uncorked to meet an unromantic demise at the mouths of two wine amateurs. Its value and perhaps, lesson later arose in an "enlightened hangover." Although I wish I could remember my first taste of Barolo, I am sorry to say, I do not. But the memory of the delinquent act still persists and occasionally haunts me - proving that like a fine wine, taste also improves with time.  

 

 

 

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