As with a lot of things in my life, I came to the world of wine somewhat arseways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started working in wine more than a decade ago, though it took me a while to recognise that I was actually working in wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Bordeaux, where I spent three years, I rubbed shoulders with people who seemed to have been born into top ch\u00e2teaux. Some literally had. Even my fellow international students often came with glittering backgrounds: they\u2019d been sommeliers, they\u2019d made wine, they\u2019d done everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve spent even longer in London, where there is a traditional and well-trodden path into \u201cthe trade\u201d and it often involves membership of exclusive clubs \u2013 only sometimes of the bricks-and-mortar kind. At least some of these people own top hats. Virtually all of them grew up with wine cellars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My own story isn\u2019t quite as linear as all that. It starts with three wine tastings in my native Dublin, Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m in a small hotel conference room. There\u2019s a nice Australian woman here. She works for one of those very, very big Australian wine brands, and she\u2019s here to present an exciting new range of wines to me and a roomful of colleagues I barely know. She says they pick the grapes at night because it\u2019s too hot during the day. I don\u2019t really know anything about wine or how you make it, though this sounds plausible enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is my first proper wine tasting. It\u2019s sometime in 2013, and what I remember more than any aroma or flavour is the novelty of being physically away from my place of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Work at that time was a supermarket in North Dublin, and for 18-39 hours a week, that\u2019s where you\u2019d find me. Now and then I would travel slightly further afield: another branch, a training day at a motorway hotel. Stepping outside the routine day-to-day always had some appeal, like jury service or a snow day. Those infrequent jaunts provided a glimpse into some liminal space, offering the slightest suggestion that there just might be something else out there. You\u2019d be amazed how quickly you can convince yourself there\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tomorrow, I would be back keying orders and rolling cages around a shop floor. But for today at least, I was elsewhere. And there was a winemaker from the other side of the world and she\u2019d brought branded pens and tasting booklets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Any memory of those wines has long since left me. Having done precisely no formal wine tasting until this point, I would\u2019ve had no frame of reference anyway. I remember there were spittoons, for actual spitting out of your actual mouth. I remember thinking that was very odd altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was my first proper wine tasting, but it was not in fact my first wine tasting. My first actual wine tasting was hosted not by an accomplished winemaker, but by some guy at the supermarket: me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A year or so earlier, I was at work \u2013 barely a month into the wine career I didn\u2019t yet know I\u2019d started. I had recently taken a promotion and the breadth of my domain had expanded to include the wine department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having already worked in grocery retail for seven years (humble brag), I was a dab hand at dealing with virtually any customer enquiry you might reasonably expect to encounter in a leafy-ish Dublin suburb: this milk is expired; that sirloin steak is supposed to be 20% off; I\u2019ve forgotten my loyalty card, my credit card, my cash; that cashier tutted at me; this place has gone to the dogs. I\u2019d heard it all. Well, almost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this wine like?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Face-to-face with an earnest, inquisitive woman waving a bottle of Beaujolais-Villages, what was I supposed to do? I dunno what the wine is like, I thought. I haven\u2019t tasted it; I haven\u2019t really tasted any wines, ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sensing perhaps that I didn\u2019t have an answer (there may have been cartoon stink lines coming out of me), she asked if it was possible to try the wine there and then. Before I knew it, I was clumsily opening a real-life bottle of wine, cork and all. I filled her up a little plastic shot-glass. I tasted, too, and so did a couple of other random hangers-on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through no fault of my own, I was hosting a wine tasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There wasn\u2019t supposed to be any wine tasting; a moment ago, there wasn\u2019t one; and yet, there we were. I can\u2019t remember what the wine tasted like, of course. The back label probably said something like \u201ckirsch and banana\u201d. Instead, I remember new possibilities and a strong sense of autonomy. Existential freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had just, for the first time ever, opened a bottle of wine with a waiter\u2019s friend (having only very recently learned what that is). And I\u2019d done it in front of a little audience, while imparting some of my nascent wine-knowledge. I knew from reading the in-store leaflets that Beaujolais-Villages is a bit different \u2013 and a bit better \u2013 than Beaujolais Nouveau, which I\u2019d also heard of and could pronounce. So I said something about that while gingerly filling up additional glasses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least two, maybe even three, people nodded their heads accordingly. This was a masterclass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, I\u2019ve been to lots of wine tastings. To my surprise, I\u2019ve even gotten quite comfortable hosting them. There are moments and situations that I\u2019ll never forget: speaking at the Vancouver International Wine Festival; leading a wine dinner in Seoul with a private dining room of shit-hot sommeliers; my first taste of Ch\u00e2teau Palmer on my first day working there. Dozens more. One looms above them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My earliest tasting where I can still really remember the wine was also probably the most profound and significant of my entire life. It took place on a random evening in 2013 at my parents\u2019 kitchen table in Raheny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve bought a bottle of wine from work. It\u2019s got an illustrated label of a little kid flying a wine bottle through outer space, past an exploding star. The design has contributed approximately two-thirds to my purchase decision, the remainder being the intriguing descriptor of \u201canimal\u201d in a tasting note I read in the in-store leaflet. The wine is called Supernova and it\u2019s a Malbec from the Loire Valley, from a producer called Domaine des Grandes Esp\u00e9rances (fittingly, maybe: French for \u201chigh hopes\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no special occasion today, but I open it up. Opening bottles of wine is something I\u2019ve still not quite got the hang of, and to make matters worse, this one has a wax seal. It\u2019ll be a few years yet before I learn that the best thing to do is go straight through the wax with your corkscrew rather than bothering to chip any of it away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The table is a wasteland of black wax bits before I manage to prise out the cork and pour myself a taste. The liquid is thick, inky and black, darker than any wine I\u2019ve seen before. It is easily the most complex and interesting thing I\u2019ve tasted yet: spicy and rich, savoury rather than fruity. But there is fruit, and it tastes like heavy, small blueberries. And fur and blood and charcuterie. It\u2019s drying in the mouth in a way that I lack the vocabulary to describe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m almost certain that this was the bottle that convinced me to truly get into wine. For a year wine had been this peripheral thing in my life: something different to do at work, something new to talk about, something to learn about, even. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at this exact moment, something seemed to click. Something fell into place. I wanted to know more about wine. I wanted to know more. I wanted more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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