Woodstock Wine Guy

Vino da Meditzione is an Italian term referencing heady, sweet dessert wines that cannot be consumed in any rush, or hurry, but require time and space to slowly encounter the wine - to meditate on on it. Ever since I first bumped into the phrase I have loved the idea that somewhere in this world was a culture that took the time to take some time.For these pages, the Vino da Meditazione are my essays, the creative non-fiction I use to try and understand how wine resonates in our lives. As the name implies, I get to stretch out here, tell stories, run off on tangents, riff on wine, its metaphors in our lives, the way it is woven into our collective unconscious. It is the play of language and the impossibility of language.

When I was a kid my dad told the story of how, as a 17 year old recruit in the Navy, getting ready to ship out to the Pacific and the last year of WWII, his instructors at Great Lakes Naval Station gave him the following bit of information about night vision and how it worked:

If you’re out with your girl during the day, buy her a cone - your rod works at night.

Night vision, where the center disappears and the only way you can see the whole is to look away from it and piece the information together from sidelong glances, is the best way of describing what Vino da Meditazione is all about. I hope you enjoy them.