I wish that I could report that there has been a wine related sketch that had been buried deep in my breast screaming to escape. But this is not the case.
Curious. Particularly when you consider how much I love wine. How much I enjoy its sensuality, its variety and spark of life.
Finally, today we will give over to a wine story… but the words will not be mine.
But first a small detour. Saturday Donna took Sandy on the western portion of the Connecticut “Wine Trail”… the purpose of this excursion was for Donna to collect the necessary validation that she had visited these wineries, thereby qualifying for a chance to win a 5 day all expenses paid trip to Spain’s Wine Country. Fourth prize is a “waiter’s cork screw” and a box of those tiny ornaments we put on the stems of wine glasses so-we-don’t-pick-up-our-neighbor’s-glass-by-mistake.
Donna adores wine. Sandy, being a faithful and true friend agreed to ride shotgun.
While Donna undoubtedly gave true consideration to each wine served at Hopkins, Haight, Land of Nod & a fourth whose name I forget, I am sure that Sandy quickly dispersed with the tasting in lieu of pecking around the gift shop. What can I say? Sandy likes gift shops of every stripe and complexion.
While browsing thru the collection of wine glasses, gourmet mustards & relishes, wine accessories and the like, Sandy picked up a small book for me, Wine Memories. It is a collection of small sketches written by a few great writers, that in some way involve wine and its enjoyment. The book is a treasure.
It would be hard to find a more impressive list of authors: Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Evelyn Waugh, John le Carre, James Thurber, M.F.K. Fisher (the one “famous” person who I would love to have dinner with), Russell Baker, John Steinbeck… and Calvin Trillin.
There is a pile of other writers, too. But the first sketch that I read was Trillin’s.
There has been no greater influence on my writing than Calvin Trillin. I first discovered his sketches in the New Yorker. It then lead me to his books, that in the most part are a compilation of his essays that previously appeared in the New Yorker or the National Observer (and maybe elsewhere, too).
I loved his writing… the variety of subject matter, the humour, the flow… and importantly: the voice. I didn’t know how he did it. But when you read Trillin it was like he was sitting in front of you in a club chair, foot up on the coffee table… talking to you. The hell with syntax and punctuation! Well, not really; but you know what I mean.
I talk every day of my life & I could give a rat’s ass about syntax.
Maybe I had a small advantage… I had actually met Calvin Trillin in my Chipp days… he came in to get an additional belt for his Trenchcoat that he had purchased from us (the coat had been made in Poland of all places… and this was in the days prior to the fall of the Communist Menace, and was an eighth the cost of Burburry’s). So I have actually heard his voice.
But even if you haven’t had that leg up, his style is wonderful in its ease. A supreme example of artful storytelling at its best. He writes longer pieces, too. His book Remembering Denny is a volume that you should get hold of. It can be read in a cozy afternoon. It is about a Yale classmate of Trillin, a person who as an entering Freshman had the world lay before his feet, a world of exciting opportunity… and who as an adult kills himself. Why? Folks, it’s a real good read.
Anyway, I have delayed you too much already. Simply put, in everything I write I try to project my voice. I confess to stealing at every turn, the cadence, interjections & tilt of the head that has been the mark of Trillin’s writing.
I am including from the book “Wine Memories”, his piece My Life in Wine in its entirety. And, if at the end of his words, you were to say, “gee… that sounds like Jim could have written that.” …Then you would be responsible for putting a smile on my face…
MY LIFE IN WINE… by Calvin Trillin April 27, 1985
I think it would be fair to say that I was in the Napa Valley recently as a wine consultant. Yes, I’m aware that you didn’t realize I know anything about wine. You have been under the impression that when to comes to my feeding habits I might be just a tiny bit unsophisticated. Don’t be afraid to say so. I know what you are thinking: You don’t understand how someone whose name has any number of times been used in the same sentence with phrases like “pigging out” could be a wine consultant in Napa Valley. Maybe the reason you don’t understand is that you don’t know precisely what a wine consultant in the Napa Valley does. After all, you never have been one yourself. I thought I’d just mention that.
Yes, I did rather enjoy eating in the San Francisco Bay Area while I was out there. What was that? Too sophisticated? No, I did not find the New California Cuisine too sophisticated. Yes, I’ll admit that I was relieved to find that there were still some pigeons left in the squares of San Francisco; it had occurred to me that since my previous visit, every last one of them might have been snatched up, smoked, and thrown on a bed of radicchio. Yes, it is true that I once expressed concern about the amount of goat cheese being served in the Bay Area, but that was before I learned that you don’t have to kill a goat to get the cheese. I like the New California Cuisine. I like California wine, too. I think that it has integrity. Plenty of integrity.
No, this is not some sort of mistake. Yes, I know you had associated me more with soda pop, or maybe beer. Domestic beer. It just goes to show you. People have hidden facets. Here’s one of my hidden facets: I don’t know much about soda pop. It was only five or six years ago that I acquired (from a San Francisco radio talk-show host named Jim Eason) the basic drill on which soft drink goes with which sort of food. It’s Coke or Crown Royal with meat, 7-Up or ginger ale with fish, and Dr. Pepper with game. But you must have known that all along. Even though I didn’t, I must say I spent a lot of my childhood eating hamburgers washed down with cherry Cokes — precisely the proper combination. When it comes to conoisseurship, I suppose there must be such a thing as a natural instinct.
Still, I don’t make any claims about being an authority on soda pop. My daughter came home from school one day recently with the announcement that Coke and 7-Up were impossible to tell apart if you tasted them while blindfolded and holding your nose. I suppose someone who is sure of his ground on soda pop questions might have said, “Ten bucks says your wrong, buster,” or something like that. I didn’t. I was willing to give it a try. What she hadn’t said was that it wasn’t easy to drink Coke or 7-Up while holding your nose, unless you are the sort of person who approaches nose-holding from above. Being blindfolded didn’t help either. but I gave it a try, and, as it happens, I was able to tell Coke from 7-Up. I don’t claim to know much about soda pop, but after taste I know.
I don’t know much about beer, either. That’s another one of my hidden facets. Yes, I know I have been to any number of late-night conversations with the sort of drinkers whose pedantry about beer increases with their consumption of it. But I don’t say much in those conversations. If someone asks me whether I like a particular beer, I say yes. It’s true; I like them all. I feel the same way about beer that I feel about ocean views: I am always happy to have one, but I wouldn’t want to put any money on my ability to distinguish among them.
Actually, I don’t think many beer pedants can tell one beer from another, any more than those traveling salesmen who think they are impressing a cocktail waitress by saying “J&B on the rocks with a twist” could tell J&B from the sort of Scotch served at faculty cocktail parties. I don’t think it would even be necessary to require them to hold their noses during the test, although I’ll admit that a roomful of blindfolded traveling salesmen drinking J&B on the rocks while holding their noses might make a pretty sight.
I was asked to be a consultant by my friend Bruce, who makes wine in the Napa Valley. For someone in the wine trade, Bruce is quite open-minded. Unlike some other Napa wine people I met on a previous visit, he had not dismissed out of hand my observation, made during a discussion about the similarities in certain American and French wines, that both Manischewitz Cream Pink Catawba and Chateau Lafite-Rothschild taste rather Jewish. Also, he has admitted to me that blindfolded even wine experts cannot usually tell red wine from white wine. This is astonishing but absolutely true. Check it out. Yes, I do occasionally write something that is absolutely true. It’s one of my hidden facets.
During my recent trip to the Napa Valley, Bruce and I met for a drink, and he said he needed some wine advice. I figured Bruce needed the sort of guidance that can sometimes be provided by people who have a natural instinct of conoisseurship — say, whether Pinot Noir would be appropriate with hog jowls. Yes, if you must know I was a bit flattered.
What he needed, Bruce said, was some help figuring out how to make his wine more attractive to people who know so little about wine, that they choose it according to the name or the label design or the price or, in extreme cases, the shape of the bottle. I looked around the bar. We were the only ones there.
“For instance,” Bruce said, “what sort of scene do you like on the label?”
I thought it over for a few moments. I finally concluded that what Bruce wanted was, in fact, simply a type of wine consultation. But you must have know that all along.
“A mountain,” I said. “I like a nice mountain.”
At that moment our waitress showed up to take our order.
“I’ll have a glass of red wine,” Bruce said. “Unless you feel like bringing a white.”
“J&B on the rocks for me,” I said. “With a twist.”
