First words about wine

First words about wine

I read about wine before I drank. Falstaff, raving about "good sack, dry sack" in Henry IV, Part I told me most of what was later confirmed when I took my first taste. When Dad bought into a wine shop in the 60s, he was green as a golf course. He brought home German wines most, Bernkasteler Doktor, Kabinetts, Spatleses. I remember the way they sat on my tongue like cool silver. For a few months they served as a guiding light in what I drank.

Gradually, through a friend from England, I learned about sherries...though I never grew to like them. In the 70s I swigged primitive homemade wines (Henry's Rhubarb from Oregon was first). As my paycheck grew, so did my interest in California wines...North Coast Pinot Noir was an early favorite...then Raymond and Cakebread and Duckhorn came along. Those hefty reds weaned me of my preference for German
wines. I never drink them now. Along the way I dabbled with the idea that French wines were superior, got over that when I tasted half a dozen domestic wines that knocked me out. More later on that.

If you read this blog more than once, you'll find me swerving from wine talk to words.
Since I mentioned Falstaff, here he is, roaring drunk and reminding us that the first
purpose of good drink is to loosen the tongue:

A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain;
dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy
vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive,
quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and
delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the
voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
excellent wit. The second property of your
excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood;
which, before cold and settled, left the liver
white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity
and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes
it course from the inwards to the parts extreme:
it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives
warning to all the rest of this little kingdom,
man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and
inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain,
the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour
comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is
nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and
learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till
sack commences it and sets it in act and use....
If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I
would teach them should be, to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.