Monday, July 02, 2007

The Tattooed Sommelier

It never ceases to amaze me how varied in appearance, socioeconomic background and culture the wine drinker can be. I myself have 4 tattoos (including one large one on my back); that doesn't really fit the stereotype for the typical wine drinker. That is the beauty of the wine world as it is today. People from all walks of life are drinking and learning and yearning to learn more about wine. There is a wine for each and every person out there. Wine drinkers cross all boundaries. That makes it so much more fun.

Except for the occasional pompous "wine ass", but those people aren't wine lovers truly. They love the status dropping names like Petrus or some other boring, tired old First Growth gives them. Or so they think. True wine lovers are explorers, they are curious, they are experimenters, they are hunters hunting that perfect bottle. The hunt can be exhilarating, especially when it ends with scoring a truly exceptional bottle.

Cork dorks know a comrade when they see one. The dead giveaway is the twinkling eyes while salivating over a gruner veltliner, nero d'avola or cortese. It's not about the next best thing, it's about exploration. We are not a trendy group. We're just unpretentious and unprejudiced when it comes to a wine's origin.

We are all tattooed by what bonds us. Some tattoos just aren't visible.

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