As has been observed before, troglodytes love seeing someone emerge from their locker with one bottle. On one hand, it's obvious: there is an occasion, this person needs just one bottle of wine. On the other hand, it's a mystery: what is the occasion? It can always be as simple as the weekend, and arguably, we should all live our lives in this every weekend is an occasion sort of way. But it might be a rare, or more special occasion, and I like to ponder that...
In any case (ha!), we'll call the one bottle man of the moment S. I asked him if he'd found what he was looking for, and he conveyed that he'd found something that would work, or something that would "do." He confessed that the heat might have been interfering with his ability to have anything (any wine?) strike him as especially, or perfectly appealing.
This made sense to me. As a troglodyte, however temporary, and a lover of many a carefully crafted beverage, I dislike being overheated, and am sensitive to the general issue of undue heat exposure for many things that I care about (wine, coffee beans that deserve a light roast, etc.).
Still, I was somehow unprepared for the following question, the difficulty of which I will blame on the heat:
"What wines have you been into lately?"
S. was very patient, and I had a full 45 seconds to think about this. I thought of my favorite wines of all time, of qualities I like in wine... but nothing came to mind as especially appealing to me right now.
The stumbling block here was not that I had not been drinking anything Cave-related (though, to be clear, I usually call it a night after one glass of wine [or the alcoholic equivalent thereof], and I need an hour to finish it). The stumbling block was that I have been into... beer, lately. Because S. was so patient, I had the opportunity to realize and convey this information.
Now, I have to thank the People of Beer for making The Cave a safe place for this revelation, and for their general excellence. But, safe space or not, it gave me an internal moment of, "WHO AM I?!" to externally communicate that I've have been more drawn to beer, than wine, lately or ever, because I was blessed with early exposure to very special bottles of wine, and further blessed with appreciation for them.
I am dealing with this identity crisis by concluding that it must be summer. Accordingly, I must be doing summery things, like going to barbeques (and enjoying a beer), or traveling and meeting travelers who I later take to my favorite pub that shows the World Cup (and enjoying a beer), or riding my bike around at night and discovering Tony's Darts Away in Burbank (all draught, all California).
So, yesterday, as if he was a humble diety listening in on my conversation with S., Vick swung by donated -- to the cause of me having an amazing weekend that is full of occasion, and to the cause of no beer that needs to be consumed while very fresh going to waste -- a couple of bottles of craft beer:
More on these to come.