The Great American Roundtable Entry

Thinking I had another week to come up with the Great American Roundtable entry, I had wine with dinner and afterward, while Lynette and I watched Project Runway. Then, my lower back still killing me from steam-cleaning our 3000 sf house and moving us upstairs to the master bedroom suite, I took a Tylenol 3 to ease the pain. When Lynette went to bed I came to my computer to check up on email and such, only to find out that it’s my turn to flex my creative prowess. Consequently, I am devoid of thoughts, ideas, and inspiration. This can’t be right. Wine loosens the imagination, or so the greats tell us...

“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine,
so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.”
Aristophanes

Brilliant ideas come to me unbidden, or so I like to think. In fact, I was quite the comedian at dinner. The bon mot was in my command as I had our 16 year-old daughter spewing grilled salmon and red peppers out of her nose. But can I come up with a single witticism now that I am called upon? Even Mozart isn’t helping. My solution, of course, is to pour another glass and wait for my muse to sledgehammer me.

I admit it. Like Johnny Depp, I am a “wino forever”. I love wine; I drink little else in the world of potent potables. Good import beer and wine, perhaps a little brandy if Geor3ge is around, but really, wine is it for me. I enjoy the humor and tolerance it brings out in people, the mellow mood it gives me and the flood of thoughts and determinations I experience when I’m alone and all of my unslayed dragons appear as little more than vapor. And I would be a liar if I didn’t say I also appreciate the confidence passion it lends to romantic nights. Yes, I likes me my wine.

Even when it lets me down.

Like tonight.

This afternoon we visited Corks, a new wine store in town and I have determined to go nowhere else. They carry wines from all of my favorite vineyards in the Santa Ynez valley, where I grew up in California. They even have the same Hefeweisse beer that we drank in Vienna at the wrap party in Vienna, and in one corner there is a tall bistro table laden with wine magazines and cookbooks where one is free to sit and plan a special menu. Best of all, they’re in cahoots with the Pass Your Plate store a few doors away where, if one buys a meal to bring home, one is given a free bottle of wine. I have found the one oasis that this state may lay claim to.

I am no wine connoisseur, but as the saying goes, I know what I like. (My mentor, Maestro Frank Salazar used to say, “No, you like what you know”, but that’s another story and he wasn’t talking about wine.)

One of the qualities I like most about wine is its power to unleash my thinking so that I can see many possibilities, even if they seem stupid the next day. While I’m sitting out on our front porch sipping at a glass or three, I work out issues that I have with myself and things don’t seem nearly as dire as they did before. The moon is brighter, the air clearer, the mosquitoes less menacing. This is wine’s genius, really. It smooths ruffled feathers and brings laughter. And rarely do you see two wine lovers duking it out over their favorite labels. The old familiar 2:00am phone call from a friend (”I love you, man!”) is usually made by someone who’s had a bit of wine, not someone who’s been drinking whiskey and is eyeballing the last girl in the bar at closing time.

So, with nary a clever word in sight I bid you a goodnight. I’m going downstairs to get another glass of wine.