by Silvestro Silvestori
La moderazione per chi lavora nel settore
I love wine.
No, I mean I really, really love it. I love everything about it.
I love the sound of cracking the scotch tape when unloading cases, of pulling spongy and squeaky corks, of splashing it into freshly-polished glasses, of that first sip of something unexpected; the way it fills my mouth as though the liquid were fermented from the late-summer fireworks of my youth.
I love spending Saturdays arranging my personal collection, of browsing stores, cantine and supermarkets the way women think of trying on clothing, with no intention of buying any, but just to be around the stuff: pleasure through osmosis. I love pulling out the horizontal bottles to read the labels, how my mind tries to predict, or if I’ve been lucky, to remember what the contents are like, whether it was sunny that year, cloudy, whether is came from places far away, where farmers train their vines in radically different ways and call their mothers words other than ‘mamma‘.
As a teacher, I love being asked about a favourite wine, of how I’ll adjust my weight in my seat, half surprised myself by the long and beautifully nuanced explanation that seems to channel through me, as welcome as an old friend.
I love books about wine, and have hundreds of them, crammed and jammed into a 17th-century bookcase, four doors wide, the books themselves, marked with my horrific hand-writing and years and years of faded purple rings.
I love the history of a very different Europe, when wine traveled by barge, by clipper ship, where it poured from countless clay pots, crystal decanters and leather pouches.
Of course an attentive reader will notice that I never mentioned the alcoholic effect of wine, which of course that is what this essay is really about.
I love that too, and maybe a little too much.
|
|
