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*With apologies to Al Green
Once in a while, there’s a memory some social media website reminds you of that makes you feel older than dirt.
For me that came in the form of a Facebook memory that popped up last week, which let me know that on that day in 2008 I had filed Uncorked No. 122.
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I’ve long stopped numbering the wine/beer/spirits articles/columns I’ve written, but some quick math (52 weeks x 14 years since then = 728, plus the 122 written before that, minus maybe 10 for weeks I didn’t file because of illness or holiday) tells me I’ve written around just shy of 850 columns.
There’s no question there’s always something new to learn about wine and all manner of drinks, but when you’ve been writing about the stuff for over 16 years you’re bound to run into the occasional mental roadblock.
Wine country in winter can be just as beautiful as in warmer months, as is evident in this photo of Meyer Family Vineyards’ McLean Creek Vineyard in the Okanagan Valley. (Ben Sigurdson / Winnipeg Free Press files)
In the last 16-plus years, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit wineries on four continents, some multiple times, including numerous visits to wineries in Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia. I’ve bent the ear of winemakers, had lunch/dinner with fellow wine writers and producers, and explored various nooks and crannies of wineries, vineyards and tasting rooms — all quite memorable and perfect fodder for Uncorked.
Higher-altitude vineyards such as this one in Chile, visited in 2015, typically offer pretty stunning views. (Ben Sigurdson / Winnipeg Free Press files)
Some trips are memorable for non-wine-related reasons. In 2011, during a two-and-a-half-week trek through Australia, I went out for a nice dinner with a long-time Tasmanian winemaker. After our lovely dinner I was dropped off at my hotel, traded my business casual garb for a T-shirt and jeans and walked over to a grungy bar to see Propagandhi. Because what else do you do when you’re 15,000-plus kilometres from home than see a bunch of your pals from Winnipeg play a rock show?
A more embarrassing memory: On my very first wine trip — to California in 2007 — I spat Pinot Noir all over the beige khakis of one of Canada’s best-known wine writers after hearing a story that simply cannot be repeated here. I looked at him in horror, and he at me, and we both suddenly burst out laughing. We’re now good pals — either in spite of or because of this event.
Witness the ‘holy crap — I’m in a helicopter’ look on my face while above Niagara Falls en route to Ontario’s Trius winery in 2015. (Magdalena Kaiser photo)
I’ve seen tarantulas in Chile, seals sunning themselves on the San Francisco wharfs, packs of kangaroos hopping their way through vineyards (I’ll let you guess where that was). I’ve travelled through wine country by foot, by bike, in the back of a pickup truck, in tour buses jammed with other writers, in dusty 4x4s and even, once, in a helicopter (in Ontario, first over Niagara Falls).
Hacking up some Cabernet Sauvignon vines at St. Supery’s Dollarhide Ranch in Napa Valley in 2016. (Paula Oreskovich photo)
I’ve had the chance to taste Riesling in Germany from the 1945 vintage, Malbec from the 1950s in Mendoza, 100-year-old port-like fortified wine in Barossa. I pruned vines (poorly!) at the late Peter Lehmann’s Stonewell vineyard in Australia and in St. Supery’s Dollarhide Ranch vineyard in Napa. I’ve crawled into holes in the ground in Portugal, Argentina and in Australia’s Coonawarra region to look at different layers of soil that impact the ability of vines to reach water.
In this 2017 photo, an Argentine winemaker (whose name escapes me) describes the soil from a hole cut in the ground in the vineyard. (Ben Sigurdson / Winnipeg Free Press files)
Since my last international trip in late 2019, I’ve been on one wine trip — a quick trek to the Okanagan Valley to judge at WineAlign’s 2021 National Wine Awards of Canada. Most of our time was spent in a room at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre tasting flight after flight of Canadian wines, and the few winery visits we did in the evenings were carefully choreographed to ensure social distancing, etc.
And while that 2008 Facebook memory did make me feel old, it got me thinking about how ridiculously fortunate I’ve been to do this wine/drinks writing stuff, how much fun I’ve had in being able to travel, and just how much I miss the travel component of all this. (I know, very first-world problem-ish.)
Visiting wine country instantly gets my brain whirring at breakneck speed with potential column topics — meeting winemakers and seeing where and how wines are made is instantly inspiring. Heck, at this point (if it felt safe) I’d even take the packed-to-the-rafters, elbows-out royal rumble that is the Winnipeg Wine Festival public tasting at the RBC Convention Centre (sounds like that beast is coming back in September, by the way).
For two years now I’ve been ordering wines online, doing curbside pickup and/or quick dashes into stores, breweries and the like — not exactly mentally stimulating. The wine-related Zooms I’ve attended, while highly informative, still happen under the same roof where I’ve spent most of the pandemic (we moved in October 2020). At times, it’s tough to find my proverbial mojo.
But things are opening back up (for better or worse), and it looks like I’ve got my first trip of 2022 lined up for this June (albeit within Canada — best to start with baby steps, perhaps). Here’s hoping it can spark my excitement and curiosity about all things wine again, which has admittedly waned since March 2020.
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