Pulling away from the breakdown lane

If wine is a moving target, the way we perceive wine makes the carousel spin even faster. There are plenty of cynical wine geeks that view wine as an extended dogma, perforating their experiences w/ bias and bullshit. Me, I just like wine. Perhaps I’m a bit too broad, but better to expand too far than contract too narrowly, I say. I’ve definitely got my sweet spots (eh-hem Chateauneuf du Pape), so I can’t say my tastes are so varied that my love of wine has become diffuse. While I’ve continued to jot down impressions of just about each bottle I drank over the past month, I have to admit that the backlog of notes has begun to clog up my hard drive space. I wouldn’t call February of 2010 a moratorium on wine writing, but I’d be remiss to not state that I’ve put on the e-brake w/ regards to my feverish documentation of detail. I began to write a post covering some impressions of a recent ’06 CDP horizontal, but it began to feel mechanical so I had to put the kybosh on it. No room for robotic servitude on this site.

The wine bookworm has removed his spectacles and loosened his pocket protector a bit, but let’s not go so far as to say that he’s rockin’ the Cristal at the night clubs just yet. I’m still nerdy.

During the past month I’ve committed multiple heretic behaviors that I previously considered inconceivable. I went to the Bahamas and drank ‘house wine’ without cringing. I dove through a deluge of drinks that may or may not have had umbrellas in them, loosening the skirt, err belt, to undisciplined proportions. I let my wife finish the bottle while I had a beer. Not just any bottle but a nice, hoard-worthy one. Oh, and I think I chugged Champagne from the bottle…maybe not Champagne Champagne, but the sparkling stuff from some non French country. You know the drill. Let’s just say I’ve splashed a bit of cold water on the old dome and stopped taking wine so damn seriously. I’ve blown up the bible and washed out my veins w/ some refreshing acidity for the soul.

That said, I’m still inappropriately obsessed w/ fermented grape juice, I’ve just taken a bit respite; a sort of Lamaze breathing bump in the road to re-focus the faculties. Renowned wine critic Robert Parker takes a 2 week hiatus from wine each year to recharge the batteries, something I still can’t quite do but I’m beginning to embrace the concept. Who knows if it will balance things out for me or not? I doubt it, considering my wiring is more off-kilter than an Elephant Man’s gait. One step at a time…

How do you stay sane w/in your passions? I suppose if you’ve already got a healthy relationship w/ wine you won’t need to change a thing; but how do you cool the engines when the smoky chassis starts to burn out?