One of the most popular questions I get as a music industry guy having gotten into the wine biz is, “when was your first taste of wine, what got you into it?”. I love to get a laugh and say that when I was 8-days old, being held down by my Dad or Grandfather, someone put a cloth soaked with Manischewitz sweet red wine in my mouth. I screamed in delight or pain, but became a lush that day. That ritual cut deep into my soul and I’ve had a spiritual relationship with the fermented fruit for most of my life. Wine does have an elevated and magical level in Judaism where there are prayers for everything, but when it comes to food, the law has only a few prayers of thanks in general, including a brucha for all that grows from the ground, except for the grape. The only fruit, the only alcohol, is wine, it is given another significance in Jewish law, and has its own blessing, “Borei Pri Hagafen--thanks for creating the fruit of the vine.”
In fact, the only wine I had up until getting Blue Nun Riesling to chug in high school was indeed bad kosher wine on Friday night Shabbat dinner at home. My parents didn’t drink and we didn’t have wine at the dinner table. Freshman year of college I brought home a bottle of Georges Dubouef Beaujoulais Nouveau 1980 and put on the Thanksgiving table, a first to have wine at a non-Jewish dinner celebration. As the oldest grandchild, my uncle started calling me Mr. Beaujoulais until the day he died. That $5 dollar bottle, the cheapest I could find at the store, was now an indelible nickname. I don’t think I had a clue really when I was 18, legal drinking age then back in Wisconsin, that it was even French. Yet, over the years French wine became more alluring. Was it James Bond intrigue with classy knowledge of Bordeaux vintages or Godard or Truffaut new wave films that facilitated interest during college; either way, something increased the thirst for learning more about this special fruit.
In the Knitting Factory days, we hardly sold wine, mostly beer and booze. We had the magnum bottles of California Cab from Mondavi, and I would do tastings from distributors for my own edification, but we hardly sold much vino. Eventually, the salespeople I asked to sample their wines stopped coming, since we didn’t sell any. The Knitting Factory tours in Europe we did had lots of wine flowing and a legitimate introduction to the incredible wines from every region in Europe. Sometime in the early 90’s, I took rare break and did a trip with Sarah to Burgundy. I had heard and tasted some Montrachet, but didn’t know much about it. I somehow found the town of Puligny and that there was one hotel in this small village. I booked a room and dinner in the restaurant, the only one in town. (There are several charming spots today.) Since it was pre-internet, I don’t recall exactly how I found it, maybe from the Michelin guide books. We drove there and at dinner had my first taste of an aged Grand Cru Le Montrachet, and it was sublime. How could a white wine taste so great, linger in the mouth so long, so round, big, explosive, unbelievable. That was it, I was hooked.
The next day, I took a run though the vineyards. I ran up the Mont through the stonewalled roads that divide up all the various vineyards that are further broken up into smaller parcels owned by various winemakers. Burgundy is very complicated because Napoleonic Code after the French Revolution gave most the land which was held by the Church and other landowners to subdivide to their heirs and then their heirs. Some wineries have only a few rows of vines in the most cherished grand crus. And there I was running and stumbled on an old man on his knees who seemed to be caressing a thick vine at the very Grand Cru Le Montrachet plot I had tasted the night before. I slowed to a walk and being the dumbass American who knows no French, I thought I heard him talking to his grapes. He took such care, like holding a child, and while I didn’t understand what he was saying, I did know he loved his vines, it was so clear.
That day, we did some tastings, but the old man and the vine was in my head--the preciousness of the process of growing this special plant was sealed in me, like a circumcision. It was that experience that really got me into wine, starting to collect, to cellar and age bottles properly, to appreciate the nuances in the fruit of the vine. L’chaim.
Yeah…Manischewitz! Man, those were the days! Like so much these days,that stuff isn’t the same anymore! I grew up about four blocks from the old Manischewitz company. It was a staple in our fridge. It was also the first taste of wine that I remember outside of The Roman Catholic sacrament.
Great article!