Some years ago, I wrote a novel, Valencia and the testament of Violeta García, in which, of course, I made a few nods to the world of wine. One of its secondary personalities, Sabino Blanco, made a reflection with which I agree more and more every day and which I thought it would be interesting to transfer to this blog. Here it is:
Wine is not a simple alcoholic liquid that can bring us to a point of joy, measured or excessive, at any given moment. Wine is much more than all that.
Wine is a way of understanding life in harmony with the earth and the sky. Wine is tradition. It is the union with our ancestors.
Wine is the blood of Christ.
Wine goes back to Neolithic times.
Wine is “terroir”: the product of specific soils; of a way of working; of the fruits of a region; of its typical climate.
Wine is travelling to other places, experiencing their way of life, their culture, their landscapes and their way of working.
Wine is also memories. Its notes bring to mind an infinite number of aromas and flavours of products that surround us: flowers, fruits, minerals, animals, objects…
Wine is friendship. Relationships between people are different when a glass of wine is involved.
And of course, wine is also fun. A reason for happiness with which we celebrate our big and small events.
(Sabino Blanco, in Valencia and the testament of Violeta García).
Of course, everyone will have their own particular way of understanding wine. Most people will limit themselves to saying whether they like it or not, without giving it much importance, something that, of course, not only seems fine to me, but is even the most normal thing, as I am aware that, in my case, my passion for the world that surrounds wine transgresses normality. In any case, Sabino Blanco’s words exemplify what wine means to me and synthesise, to perfection, everything that this little world entails.