Wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY-NER-CHUK!) (winelibrarytv.com) was in town promoting his first book, 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, and we had lunch at Taste at the Seattle Art Museum, across the street from Seattle’s famous lesbian-owned strip club, The Lusty Lady, of course. The marquee read “Inspiring Exhibitionism” and as we ate Chef Craig Hetherington’s gorgeous seared Vessel St. Jude albacore and drank a glass of Masterpiece White (an aromatic – honeydew, cantaloupe, white blossom – blend of Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc made by Taste general manager Danielle Custer, former Chef Chrisopher Conville and a bit of myself), it began to make sense. Shouldn’t everyone’s life work be about ‘inspiring exhibitionism’ – creating your show, showing your stuff, puffing up your feathers, flapping around—whatever that may be? One person’s exhibitionism inspires another. Townshend Cellars winemaker Don Townshend met Danielle at a winemaker dinner and said “you should come and make wine with me” because she was so passionate about wine. And she replied, “ask me again, and I just might!” So there you are. Danielle asked me—a fellow wine freak—to help chronicle the making of this wine and join her in its creation, so we traveled to Spokane to work with Don on several occasions, blending, racking, bottling…laughing, eating and drinking. And now its in a bottle—it’s out there!
Gary shares his love of wine every day and said that TODAY (well, what he really said was TOMORROW, but that was yesterday) I should begin blogging and sharing my love of wine, poetry, whatever. With whomever. Yeah, yeah, I say, who needs another blog? It’s truly information overload out there. But at the same time, losing inhibitions like the ladies of the Lusty, makes life WAY more fun and I definitely need that in my life right now, and so Gary, I’m taking up your challenge, dude!
I love the book—Gary cracks open the traditional language we use for tasting wine to include terms like “haunted house” which is his version of a wine that smells or tastes of dusty wood, cellar must (in a good way), and cobwebs. Come on, do cobwebs really have an aroma? Next time I see one, I’ll find out. Thanks a lot Gary, for making me smell a goddam cobweb! I’ll NEED a glass of Clos Delorme Valencay 2005 (Gamay, Malbec, Cab Franc, Pinot Noir from the Loire Valley) after that!
