On this week's Splendid Table, Matt Kramer makes a distinction I can't stop thinking about. He talks about wines of fear and wines of conviction. Wines of fear, he says, are notable by what they don't have - tannins, oak, etc. Wines of conviction are notable by what they do have. (Matt also talks about how the connection between price and quality has been completely broken down, but that's another blog).
For the record, I'm not a oenophile. At all. In fact, I am fairly intimidated by the guy who staffs our neighborhood wine store. I can't talk about overtones and undernotes and this and that. I have just enough knowledge to usually choose a glass I like in a restaurant, or an under $12 bottle at the store.
What fascinated me was this: At one point in the podcast, the host, Lynne Rossetto Kasper, asks Matt Kramer how one can tell the difference between the two - the wines of fear and the wines of conviction. His response - you just know. Almost everyone who has had at least a glass or two of wine can tell. Wines of fear taste like they come from "nowhere". Wines of conviction taste like they come from "somewhere".
That makes sense to me. I probably can tell. Conviction tastes like distinction, complexity, authenticity. Whether it is an $8 bottle of Cava (which is the wine he is discussing) or a $300 fancy pants expense account bottle.
We know the same is true with people. Spend a few minutes with someone and most of us get a gut instinct - is this a person from nowhere or a person from somewhere? Sometimes we like that somewhere, sometimes we can't stand it, but we are never bored by it. The same is true for organizations. Is this an organization that puts a stake in the ground, that operates from conviction? On some level, we feel it. We recognize it when we see it. Those are the people, and the organizations, that I want in my sandbox. Even when they aren't quite so "easy drinking".
It's Elul, the Jewish month where we think about the year that has past and the year that is coming. For all of us, I hope the year that comes is a year of wines of conviction. I hope that we all surround ourselves with individuals, teams, and organizations defined by who they are, not who they aren't.
And let's all toast the new year with a glass of that $8 Cava, please. But I'll send JB in to pick mine up.
This is a great connection. I feel the same way about music. If it 'comes from somewhere' I will most always find something in it that compells me to listen (much to the dismay of my family at times). And, for the record, I am still pretty much of a dummy at the wine store.
ReplyDeleteI think that surrounding oneself with and attracting individuals and groups of conviction comes easily when one comes from somewhere, too.
ReplyDeleteI like this post very much. You are certainly one of the good wines.