Time to dust off the old wine blog. It’s been a long while of no writing and seeing as I have a bit more time on my hands, now it is a great time to entertain y’all. I know there’s nobody listening at this point, but we have to start somewhere.
Once upon a time I had passion. I had drive. I had integrity. I had vision.
Alright . . . I didn’t have any of those things. Well . . . maybe.
Really, I just had a wine shop. I kept that thing going for five years until I decided that retail endeavors in a recession was like swimming upstream with gravel in your pockets.
Now the point I’m getting at here, is that after working at a wine distributor for a few years, then as a retail wine shop owner for five more years, you don’t realize how dependent you get on that wholesale wine. I mean, you have access to every variety of wine at costs that can be half of what you pay in retail. On top of that, you get salespeople coming in constantly with samples of wine for you to try. Sometimes they leave behind bottles for you to try at your leisure, or sample for your customers. And even on top of that, you get invited to all the wine tasting events, for free, which is generally an orgy of free wine and tasty snacks. Ah, those were the days.
Now once you unplug yourself from the wholesale wine scene into a civilian life of full retail prices, after suckling at the teat of discounted and often free nectar-of-the-gods, the illusion comes crumbling down in the grand, sobering realization: Hey . . . this shit’s expensive!
The transformation is gradual, after couple months of losing that privilege. That sinking feeling sets in that the $20 bottle you enjoyed so much in the past was no longer in the budget’s forecast. Sure, that $6.50 bottle isn’t as tasty . . . But Hey! We can get three of ’em for the same price!
That considered, I figured nobody needs a wine writer to rate and review the budget stuff. A friend recently pointed out that I was wrong on that point. Most folks are in the same boat. Sometimes we do need somebody to sort through the junk heap to find the tiny treasures.
My intentions for this space are now to fill it with words. Those words will have something to do with wine, at whatever cost. We still have many more things to discuss. Stay tuned.
