If I tell you this you have to swear never to tell another person I am so fickle in some of my likes and dislikes that at times that even I can't keep up. One moment I love American Chardonnay again and the next I can't quite believe that I could ever drink anything that overly oaked. Sometimes my fickleness comes from an overload of one thing; too much steel fermentation and the tongue needs some oak. Sometimes though I am just plain indecisive and fickle; I can no longer love Lyle Fass because his new photo is not nearly brooding and dark enough for me, This is not the same thing as being fickle about my over-arching loves. There are some wines that every time I drink them they are even better than I remembered; the Alloro Pinot Noir, Larmandier Bernier Blanc de Blancs and the Angus Cabernet. Then there are some wines that I fall out of love and back in love with on a regular basis; Cabernet Franc from all over, Loire Chenin Blanc's and even Rioja. But mostly I think my being fickle comes from context and the more I think and learn about wine the more I am convinced it is all context.

Imagine if you could take mood, temperature, sickness and health, garlic and all other strongly flavored foods, wealth and relative poverty out of the equation. If you could taste wine in a perfect vacuum where you didn't just get yelled at by a crazy man on the subway and our president didn't just make an ass of himself. What would the wine actually taste like? Is it even possible to taste wine like this and would wine even matter if you truly lived in a bubble? Which is why context becomes so important because what I am looking for a wine to do for me is constantly changing based upon where I am in my life. So there, I think that my fickleness comes from an entirely valid and realistic place. Now can anyone get Lyle to change his picture?

Labels: american, wine culture