Two Years Ago Today…
I posted a short bit on Wells Discount Liquors and, thus, became a wine blogger. Fortune and Glory ensued. At the time, my goal was to cover Maryland and Virginia Wines as they tried to grow from also-rans into respectable wine regions.
Since then I have published 217 posts (and at least 400 typos) about Maryland and Virginia but plenty of others about everything else in the wine universe. I was going to go back and include a top 5 list of my favorite posts, but Wordpress is slow today and I don’t feel like clicking back and back and back. If you have a favorite, drop a line in the comments.
Wine blogging, in general, underwent a boom in 2008 and early 2009 and now seems to be trailing off. Initially struggling for respect and recognition, the trumpet sound of the Wine Blogger has quieted. There just isn’t all that much interesting to talk about. Bloggers that post early and often have to reach for asinine topics and wild tangents just to keep their fingers moving on the keyboard. This is, at least, preferred to the dreaded “I bought it, I drank it” post which dominates much of the wine blogoshpere.
So if wine blogs aren’t interesting, what of the subject that they cover? Is wine interesting enough to merit books and blogs and newspaper columns, all pretty much saying the same thesis over and over: “Wine isn’t all that complicated!” The fact is that wine is both infinitely complex and stupidly boring. Tasting rooms are so typical that if you’re seen one, you’re seen them all. Maybe one has cheese. Another, classical music playing. They all have a Chard that isn’t in the California Style, an oak monster, a fruit bomb, and an overpriced reserve wine. Join the wine club. Wine critics decry the death of the tasting note, but the fact is that critics are getting so absurdly flowery in their notes that you need a dictionary just to decode what your wine will taste like. There are only so many words you can use to describe a wine, especially when 95% of wine is produced with no soul, slapped with an authentic looking label, marked up to $25, and sold out immediately. No wino like to say it, but slapping a 91 on one wine and an 89 on another tells me which you preferred. That’s all we really want to know.
But while it all looks and feels the same on the surface, every glass of wine is different from the last. Even from the same bottle, filling up your glass and taking in a big whiff of the fermented grape juice gives you something different than the last time. That’s what makes wine different from anything else. It comes from the Earth, ferments in some oak and as long as it hasn’t been messed with too much, comes out feeling authentic and whole. Enjoy the simplicity and the complexity, and don’t forget to share it with someone else.
