I’m not saying this to you, but I heard it for many, many years (and I still do, whenever we meet)…
So, let’s take it from the beginning… (as much as we can, since the delight of emotions is—whatever way you do it—their disorder).
I don’t know much about wine, so my relationship with it is quite simple! ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’.
But I had the good fortune many, many years ago to meet two special people in my life …
One of them was Giannis Boutaris, whose reply, when I said to him: ‘I don’t know a thing about wine: give me the name of a good wine’, took me aback completely, while also being (a bit of) a relief:
‘Good wine is what you like!’ he said.
The other one was a woman… Let’s call her ‘the love of my life’! And she knows so much about wine that in my eyes, she’s a ‘wise woman’…
We always disagreed on the subject of ‘wine’…
What made me choose a wine was either the label (I’d get it if I liked the design and the name), or the price (why pay a lot for something I wouldn’t appreciate), or because she (the ‘wise’ woman of wines, of course) had told me to get a particular ‘label’!
I’ll tell you one thing about her (the ‘wise’ woman of wines, of course): she took more time to pick out wines than she took to pick out clothes and—believe me—she is quite elegant!
She would turn the bottle one way, look at it another way, google it, and finally pronounce with a devilish certainty that you could not object to (to stop me from making a fool of myself):
‘We’ll get these’!
And as soon as we heard the sound of the cork, there was no more room for objections…
Here, if you permit, I will make a digression…
Beer (in an iced glass) means life without rules, the beach, warm weather, surfing, pork chops at ‘Telis’ or burgers at ‘Ladokolla’, ‘Armata’ on Spetses, or relaxed nights and a decadent disco on the island of Kasos…
Vodka (in a rocks glass, with ice and 2 slices of lemon) means semi-darkness, loud music, mellow jazz, or even the music of Mazonakis, a crowd, but also relaxation, a hotel bar in New York or Brussels; it means—how can I put it?—something… quick and easy!
(End of digression…)
Wine, however, means none of the above…
It suggests intensity, preparations, excitement, anticipation, dreams, ideas, new beginnings, and hard endings!
(No doubt the brewers and drinkers of spirits will have a go at me now, but—forgive me—the truth needs to be told…)
In short, my friend, wine means feelings!
Because that’s what it meant when many, many years ago I was sitting in an armchair with a glass of wine (and without a cigarette), watching over my sleeping son who’d come home for the first time…
Every minute I had a little panic attack! With every sip of white wine, I had a thought like: ‘what the hell, we’ll manage’ (exactly the same thing happened when my daughter arrived a few years later)!
Because that’s what it meant when many, many years ago, I filched a bottle of wine, two very beautiful wine glasses (because I may not know about wine, but I’m an expert with glasses), I carefully put them in the boot of the car and found myself for the first time with ‘the love of my life’, on a beach (Katakolo, would you believe it?) with conversation, laughter, confessions, glances, asking myself ‘now what?’ (that ‘now what?’ continued for many years)…
Because that’s what it meant when many, many years ago I was staring (mind blank, in a cold sweat) at empty sheets of paper and pencils because I had to design my first magazine (it was the same story when I designed my first newspaper a few years later, and the same story the night before the first my radio show)…
Because that’s what it meant when, several years ago, with a glass of wine in my hand, I was looking for the last time at the house where I had spent ten very beautiful years and was preparing to close the door behind me, having lived through a hard ending but with the relief of a new beginning…
That’s what it meant a few years ago (again with a glass of wine) when I felt complete consternation… swinging between sadness and joy because my son had decided to pursue his dream to go live and work abroad…
That’s why I tell you, my friend, wine means feelings and emotions…
I didn’t realise it until my dear friend Maria asked me to write something for the ‘guest blog’…
‘Take a look, read it, and if you like it, write something,’ she said to me.
I went to the site and read, and felt embarrassed…
What could I contribute to a blog written by the ‘wise ones’, when I knew next to nothing about the subject?
But in a meeting a few days ago (you know who you are and I thank you…) the usual ‘drink this, you’ll love it!’ set off in me a domino effect of memories!
And it made me understand—all too well—what wine means (even for an ignoramus like me, who can’t tell a Malagouzia from Assyrtiko)…
It means feelings, it means special moments, it means whatever you want to feel, whether or not you know about wine!
So let me tell you something:
I don’t envy the ‘wise ones’ of wine and I’m certainly not interested in becoming one of them…
But I am grateful to everyone who has been, is, and will be in my life, to disagree with me and call me out because I know nothing; who will say to me ‘drink this, you’ll love it’ and share a glass of wine with me, full of feelings and emotions, no matter how cheap it is!
