On Saturday, I went over to a friend’s house for a wine
tasting party. A wine consultant came over
and brought eight different wines for the group to try. To begin, the consultant asked my friend what her
favorite wine was and I think my buddy made the mistake of saying, “Stella
Rosa.” At which point the lady went on this
huge explanation of how Stella Rosa wasn’t considered a wine, listing her
various oppositions against it being called thus. It was during this passionate outburst that I
realized that to her (and serious wine lovers) the process and the materials
that go into making each bottle of wine matters. I am this way with fashion, I care about how,
where and out of what my clothes, shoes, and bags, etc. get made. Reading vintage blogs I know there’s people
that collect furniture and house items because they are USA made and the
construction and material outdo anything getting made now-a-days.
I have an older friend who invited me to her house and as
she gave me a tour, she told me a story about each item in her house. Like this large, beautiful mahogany chime
clock had been in her family for generations, the china that she was serving my
dinner in she proudly got as inheritance from her grandmother and the
silverware (real silver) was a wedding gift from her parents. As we went through each room she pointed at
everything from generations past. I felt
like I was in a small museum and I got such a great sense of unity and
conservation of her family history, memories embedded in crochet pillows,
colorful quilts, and paintings on the walls.
Before stores like Ikea, parents passed on family heirlooms
to their children; but, now no one wants their possessions. Today young people tend to buy things that
are temporary and disposable and not keen on keeping delicate keepsakes. We don’t develop emotional connections to
things and a lot of the time as consumers we have been conditioned to buy
simply on the notion of scoring a deal. Our wine consultant kept stating that
American’s only care about “getting more for their buck” even if that means
sacrificing quality. She was this sweet
lady so passionate about the products that she promoted and her knowledge about
each bottle and its production made me realize how much more I have to learn in
terms of being a Christian consumer. To
her a bottle of wine carried much more than the happy liquid, each bottle tells
a story of all the hands, time and earthly ingredients that come together to
create something worthy of its title.
Until Saturday, I thought that drinking cheap wine made me humble, but I
now realized that sometimes being a snob is a good thing (smile). She taught me to swirl, smell and most
importantly savor the wine. As I tasted wines that I would normally only
buy for special occasions I realized that sometimes a higher price does mean higher
quality. I am not yet well enough versed in wine to notice the taste difference
between Stella Rosa and a higher quality wine, but my Saturday education made
me a more “aware” consumer. I learned
that usually quality wines still are handled by human hands who take pride of
the grapes they grow; while cheap wines are mostly produced by machines and with
grapes that are mass produced in areas that make one think twice of consuming
such items.
When Pope Francis said that, “we are a throwaway culture,” I
didn’t realize the extent those words covered.
On Saturday, I realized I have a long way to go in repairing thought
patterns that still influence my shopping. It was also the day that I
became a wine snob (smile) mostly due to my new education!
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