Why wine?

Why do I like wine?

It is quite tasty and fascinating! To be created, it requires the right and left brain working together in conjuncture with nature providing perfect weather. When done right a unique beverage emerges that could age over 100 years and may contain thousands of different aromas and flavours. Grape vines grown one row apart can have very different characteristics; every year the grapes are a little different. Every wine represents a certain time, place, and a story by the person who made it.

Growing up, my family kept some old world traditions that I will always remember. On special occasions the kids got a small glass of red wine with dinner, so it could of started there.... also, my last name Villard has 2 grapes named after it, Villard Noir & Villard Blanc; so I could have wine in my blood going back much further. I wasn't always into wine but as I grew so did my tastes.

The other early memory I have of wine is that if my Dad and uncle Tom were drinking wine it came from a box, and they would only drink out of these large metal goblets because wine glasses were too small. When the box was finished it was customary for my brother and I to fight over who gets to keep the inner liner / silver pillow / water toy / air drum / or what ever the hell it is that we did with them.

In high school, ....I didn't drink at all.....because that would of been illegal. But if I did, I mostly drank cheep beer, and probably would go on a tequila kick for awhile. The closest I would have gotten to wine was something cheap called "Rotting Grape" that was made by the Mikes Hard Lemonade people.

In Whistler when I was legal to drink, I drank mostly beer, Kokanee beer to be exact. It was cheap, came in 30 packs (less travel) and I'm sure it tasted better back then. A few times a year I would go to my Aunt & Uncles for dinner, and since I was raised right correctly, I would bring a bottle of wine. Despite being a snowboard bum on a budget I would sometimes splurge for a 'nice' bottle. This meant the $13-14 range instead of the $8-10 I might buy. I eventually got back into wine my second year tree planting. My planting partner Eric and I would buy a box of red wine every week heading into the bush. It was cheap, traveled well, kept well and was the perfect amount for two disgruntled planters sitting around swatting mosquitoes for a week.

In my twenties just after film school I finally had that wine moment. No bottle of wine had ever made me think of it as anything other than fermented grape juice. I have forgotten who's party I was going to and what the occasion was. All I remember was it was from Salt Spring Island and it was a Pinot Noir, early 2000's, and maybe $20.  It blew my wine mind with its depth of aromas and flavours. It was pale in colour but full of layers of complexity that lingered in your mouth.

I went to my first winery tasting room in 2009, at a small winery in Oliver called "The Golden Beaver".  Their name has now been changed to the Italian translation, "Castoro de Oro". We hadn't planned on doing wine tastings on this trip, but as any good Canadian would, I just had to turn the truck around and go visit anything called The Golden Beaver. We walked in and told the lady it was our first time and to be gentle. She walked us through a wonderful tasting, and it was a great experience where I learned a little about wine and what I kinds I liked.

At this point I started to at least explore wine a little and see what else was out there. It wasn't until I badly broke my leg Mt biking that I really switched gears about getting to know wine. I wasn't able to bike or snowboard that year, so I was forced to slow down and find a different passion. I ended up touring the Okanagan and Napa Valley on crutches and I was hooked. Every winery was like walking into a different art gallery where all the paintings were scratch and sniff. You quickly figure out what you like and you meet such passionate people sharing their wines with you.

I have since bought a wine fridge, filled it up, taken several courses in wine, and try to hold monthly tasting's for friends. I write this blog, subscribe to wine magazines, and joined the wine Century Club by tasting over 100 different grape varieties. I will take time to taste the dirt when visiting a vineyard, but have learned to move swiftly in wine shops as my patient wife waits in the car. I've participated in the Batella de Vino (Wine Fight) in Haro, Spain; where they waste more wine then a small winery in the BC makes in a year.

Wine has its health benefits, made by passionate people; the grapes will change with the weather, and the wine can change in the bottle. There are over 10,000 different grape varieties all over the world with always something new to try. It is a social drink we have been sharing with each other for thousands of years and creating memories from it.

So why wine? Wine not!