Its like this, you see...

He said...

Nerds.

Let’s start with something you may have guessed already. 

I am one. 

I’ve been a nerd since long before the term had any positive connotations.  Now it’s OK to be nerdy and still be considered a little cool.  But back in the day most of us nerds spent our days railing in fury at the film “Revenge of the Nerds” because we knew that the promised hot-but-understanding-sorority-girlfriend was but a cruel carrot dangled before us by evil Hollywood scriptwriters.

But I digress.

The word brings to mind an entire range of assumed personality traits, doesn’t it?  Here are a few of my favorites.

-Social unease

-Love of science fiction and fantasy

-General Smarty-ness.

-Can construct/program/repair computers with nothing more than chewing gum and tinfoil.

Well, OK.  Most of those are true to some degree.  (Although in my particular case trusting me with PC repair is a dangerous gamble) But there’s really one defining characteristic that I’ve noticed in most of my nerdy brethren.

Want to know what it is?

We’re Packrats.

Collectors.

Connoisseurs of Pop Culture.

I know very few nerds who don’t collect SOMETHING.  If not multiple somethings.  Books are a common one.  We LOVE the written page.  Probably because for a long time it was our escape from a world that we felt never really got us.  And vice versa.  But we’ll collect anything:  Cards, action figures, autographs, you name it, there’s probably someone out there with whatever it is safely stored away in boxes and archival quality bags.  I don’t know who runs that particular industry, but they owe us BIG.

Like those of my particular ilk, I have my collections as well.  My assortment of comic books has long threatened to take on a life of its own and force me to charge it rent.  But I was content with my life of simple pleasures and the weekly pilgrimage to the FLCS (Friendly Local Comic Store for those unschooled in the local lingo).

Then the most unbelievably unlikely thing happened to me.

I met a girl.

Amy, although what my best friend describes as nerd-friendly, is most definitely NOT a nerd. 

 She’s mostly tolerant of my comic collection but thinks it could stand to go on a diet.  

My collection of oddball t-shirts left her somewhat baffled and resulted in several epic battles regarding my general state of dress.  (Three guesses who won).

 She’s opinionated, takes no prisoners and usually leaves me in a state of constant bafflement as to how the species survived.

But despite the tornado of chaos that she brought into my hermetic life, she’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. 

She’s also much more of a spur-of-the-moment type of person than I am.  So after a long, exhausting trip to visit her folks in Pennsylvania, she decided that we needed to stop at a local Maryland winery. 

“I’ve always wanted to and never been.”  She gave as her explanation. 

Now up until that point my experience with wine was limited to the occasional glass with dinner at my folks’ house and a tasting in Yountville, CA when my brother lived just outside of San Francisco.  And a bottle of Chateau Latour 1953 I inherited from my grandmother when she died.  To this day I don’t know if what I’ve got is an impressive bottle of vinegar.  I just thought it was a good way to sound cool.  “Oh, well, I’VE got a bottle of Chateau BLAHBLAH!  FEEL THE CLASS RADIATE OFF OF ME!”

The many dates I was hoping this would get me never really did materialize.

Go figure.

I didn’t DISLIKE wine.  I just didn’t GET it.

How does an entire world-wide culture revolve over what was essentially grape juice gone bad?  What was the big deal?  These pretentious looking people standing at a bar, taking little bitty sips, swishing it around like expensive Listerine and then spitting it out?  The last time I did that my mom sent me to my room for playing with my food! 

But hey, I needed a break from driving and it didn’t sound like a terrible idea. 

“OK.” I said noncommittally.  

Yep, the king of romance.  That’s me. 

The wine was pretty good all things considered.  I even tried doing what I saw everyone else doing.  Sniffing the wine, swirling it around in the glass, knowing from an intellectual reason why I was doing it but not really feeling it. 

But it was a very nice way to break up the trip. 

Most wineries are set in beautiful, pastoral settings and its really hard to be annoyed in one.  So when one is needing a break from the butt-crushing experience of a long car ride, a winery can be a very nice stop.

So I didn’t really think much about the experience until several weekends later Amy decided we needed to try some more.  Maryland is filled with a great many wineries and some were fairly close by.  So, being the king of romance, I grunted non-comittally and agreed.

Again, nice setting, perfect weather for a drive in the country, decent wine, so far so good.

Then, I discovered something that I had not been aware of.

Some wineries let you keep the tasting glass.  

NERD GENES, ACTIVATE!   

My collectoral compulsions kicked into overdrive!  We could go around the countryside, enjoy each other’s company AND have something new to collect? 

All of the sudden this made sense!  To me anyway.

Before Amy knew what had hit her, I was the one suggesting winery trips.  Sometimes to the exclusion of all else.  Suggestions to go to a winery instead of getting groceries are why she can cock one eyebrow in frustration.

It really is a miracle she puts up with me.

But being the indulgent type (usually) she agreed and we started to experience what the local wine culture had to offer.  And then the strangest thing happened.

I started to get it!

Let me be clear, I still don’t completely understand everything about wine.  But I began to notice subtle differences in taste and aroma.  I began to feel this simple-yet-complex strange chemical concoction’s universal appeal.  So I made a decision.  One that I’m sure Amy regrets encouraging in me.

I decided to learn.  

 Then she said...

Escape:

For me, wine is about escape.  I remember my first experience. While I would like to say I appreciated its nuance and complexity with the verve of a cosmopolitan, expressing herself with sharp wit and innovation, I think the memory that remains, over 15 years ago, is simply that I felt transported.  I didn’t immediately have an affinity for the dry, red wine I was offered but figured it was an acquired taste.  I kept sipping politely, hoping for a quick acculturation. Instead, while the taste never fully registered as anything but slightly unpleasant, a languid, warm feeling began to spread from my middle to the edges of my fingers and into the knots of my back. The tension and anxiety that generally lingers on the surface and in the atmosphere surrounding me, felt released. I was free and…floating. I felt connected—connected to things I hadn’t paid close attention too in a while—to fingertips on glasses, to high-pitched words, to the cadence and rhythms of jazz notes in the air, to sighs and to soft words…to breath all around me.

While the memory of that feeling stayed with me and encouraged further forays into the vine culture, it was a long time before I began to relate to it in any other way than through what that first metaphysical escape had offered. I found that writing papers, dinner parties, bubble baths, and first dates, were much better with the alchemy wine offered.  But, I never really considered the experience of taste. I figured that sweet wine was the way to go.  The more sugar the better.  That way the unpleasant sensation that accompanied the pleasant one could be avoided altogether.

Then, the movie Sideways (2004) happened. For those of you not familiar with this movie, it’s mostly about friendships and what connects us to people over the long term.  And, the central metaphor of the movie is about wine and how humans are much like a well-made vintage, growing and eventually peaking over many years of life experiences.  One speech from the female lead that made an imprint on me is copied here:

“I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I’d opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity.”—Maya in Sideways 

I remember hearing these words and feeling a sense of excitement. It was like a hidden world opening its door to me, inviting me to come in and experience all its wonders, like finding the wardrobe and the lamppost that beckoned one into Narnia. How had I missed it before? To think that wine could taste differently, depending on the day and year—that it’s juice was always alive and maturing and changing—that it had a life to unfold and to discover and that other people touched it and manipulated it—people who I would never see but who passed through my life by the very fact that I had bought a bottle of their wine and imbibed their work, their art.

I began to approach the experience of wine differently.  Before, it had been with a desire to escape the pressures of nervous energy but now I wanted to escape into the lives and worlds of other people and places and times.  I wanted to vicariously experience the grapes of other landscapes and the hands that picked them and the accompanying seasons, the hopes, the alchemy of ingredients and infusions…I was on a mission.

Dinner parties were an excuse to imbibe more knowledge, to dry different kinds, to understand their ranges…to see if I could identify oaks, blackberries, cherries, currants, vanillas, citruses, hibiscus flowers. What tasted smooth and what didn’t? What were tannins and what made one vintage more desirable than another? Then, there were pairings.  What particular wines brought out flavors in meats and fishes and which varieties paired better with cheese and pastas? And, what kinds were better served as a sweet aperitif, alone and at the close of a good meal or a good conversation? The explorations and the escapes were endless.

I went to wineries and to wine parties and to wine stores.  But, after a while, while my passion for learning and experiencing did not diminish, two things happened. I found myself single and starting graduate school, both for the second time.  Single people, I found, can sometimes have a difficult time going to a winery and casually approaching the counter for a “tasting…for…um…one.” Also, grad school budget is limiting. I had to curb my enthusiasm for the more expensive vino. The spontaneity of a $35 dollar bottle of wine or higher had to be measured against the need for gas and groceries for the week. Instead, I had to compress what I knew about wine into affordable selections that would satisfy. I put my passion on hold, deciding that I had other explorations to embark on—this time anthropology.  And while this one would not be forgotten, it would definitely be on hiatus for a while.

Several years later, John entered my life. He came definitely when most needed, like the wind that gently shakes the leaves from the branches in fall time.  I had spent several years, first with a masters and then en route to a PhD, on a tight budget, tight schedule, tight work time, etc. that, while I had learned a lot about other parts of the world and myself included, I had forgotten to connect with my more sensual side. I had missed the nuances that used to sing to me on a daily basis. Words and ideas and deadlines had totally circumscribed my existence, and John brought me back to my wardrobe and lamppost. I began to see the magic of the day again--through long dinners and experimenting with new foods, through walks and talks and hands held through the evenings that turned into mornings, through early sunrise lattes and drives to nowhere and…everywhere.

It was then that I remembered wine and all that it could offer and I wanted to share it with the person who had reawakened my senses. He may be all about the glass, which makes me smile, but he also is all about me…which, like a good bottle of wine, makes one forget, forge things like the stress on the body, about the negative pieces of the day, and instead focus on the positive, the magical moments.  It also made me want to reorganize and categorize and re-experience my world, much like the classifying and reclassifying of many wines, to include this love that is happening to me and to expand the parameters of my living – so that one day I too will peak with all my memories and moments, like a good bottle of wine – at least I hope so.  For now, I’m enjoying the escape and the exploration and the learning about wine differently than before.  Now, I’m looking for what is similar and different in our palates, and while I still cock my eyebrow in frustration occasionally when he decides he likes a sweet wine better than a dry, smooth one, I try to see it from his perspective and that’s another adventure altogether….


By the way, keep in mind that everything you read here is JUST OUR OPINION.  We're not experts.  Take it for what its worth.  :)