Magazines, not books, defined my life growing up in Brooklyn. During my teenage years, born were aspirational feelings while flipping through the pages of Travel, Food, Wine and Men’s magazines. I drew floor plans of homes I would one day live in, homes copied from Architectural Digest; I made lists of places to visit and rooms to rent from the Room With a View pages I tore and compiled and categorized from Conde Nast Traveler; I explored wine regions and learned more about wine by reading than actually drinking during those formidable years. And then there were the Savile Row suits I would wear when I first took sip of some sought after elixir after a long day of traveling to the tables of families and friends in England, Italy, France and Spain, where the wine and food flowed endlessly to the lips and onto the tongues of everyone in joyous mouthfuls. These dreams, these aspirations, came true when I left a nine-year tenure at a magazine publisher to pursue the gastronomical delights of living in Italy and learning how to make wine. I still sit at home and read through countless magazines that clutter my surroundings. And today there is a small part of my past life that can recall the true experiences I had living the life that I had envisioned many years early while scanning the pages of my favorite magazines. So, for this post, I am going to steal a column from two great publications, part Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire, part Esquire, What I’ve Learned. Here’s a tidbit of what I’ve learned so far. With many more years of living (and drinking) I hope to add to this list.
A trip to a vineyard will not only inform your senses, it will educate you on the effort it takes to produce every single bottle.
Scores and ratings aside, a wine’s true pleasure is its X-Factor, its excitement factor.
Wine is like a woman. Yes, she can be beautiful, but we love her for how she interacts with what is around her.
Smokers have better senses of smell than non-smokers because the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke clogs the enzymes that break down scents therefore allowing the smell molecules to linger in the nose longer.
My Desert Island six-pack would include Rene Rostaing’s Condrieu, DuMOL’s Chardonnay, Volpe Passini’s Tocai, Sean Thackrey’s Pleaides, Frog’s Leap Cabernet and Haut-Brion, of course.
Winemakers never smell the cork at the dinner table, but will secretly give it a glance to check its porosity.
Two Buck Chuck is brilliant but bad for those who think Chardonnay should actually taste that way.
Balance in life (work and play) is essential and so is balance in the vineyard and in the glass.
Chemistry can help a winemaker understand the long-term potential of a wine.
Cheap Australian Shriaz screwed the potential of the American Syrah market.
Consumers will always be price sensitive, but the goal is to create a conversation, sometimes about the wine itself, but more importantly with the people who are enjoying it. And if we are fortunate, a memory will be made not on the price paid, but the stories themselves.
BYOB means “bring your own bottle” but doesn’t have to mean “break your own budget.”
A young wine will be more fruit-forward. Think of a Cezanne still life and the thick, rich colors he used in painting his pictures, the fruit almost appeared one-dimensional. As wine and paint age gracefully, the colors will fade and become more savory and complex.
Cat piss is no way to describe a wine.
Smelling is scary, especially when you are not familiar with swirling and fear splashing yourself. But swirling and smelling is of the utmost importance.
Next time you buy a bottle of wine, stop at your grocer on your way home and buy an accompanying piece of fruit that matches the scents and structure. Pour yourself a glass of Chablis and bite into a green apple; the yellow-white pulp may even match the color of the grape juice in your glass.
Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west.
