Jeremy Maron

Wine Consultant | Winery Tasting Rooms | Private Events

winethoughts

Granny Gets Her Groove On

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It’s weird to be fondled up by a 70 year old woman.

Women of a certain age have a thing for my tattoos. It happened again. She and her husband were tasting at the bar. Both in their seventies, they had been there awhile before I actually had come on up on them. They had been poured by another member of my staff and that person had to step away for a moment. It was cold and a little rainy and she was tightly wound up in her fur coat with husband on her side. Oddly, it they had not been too chatty at the bar, instead choosing to talk to each other rather that open a big conversation with one of our staff members.

It’s always the quiet ones… then I starting talking to them.

The first thing she asked me was what it meant. My tattoo. It’s an odd question because the tattoo she was referring to is a 3/4 sleeve Japanese inspired print of waves, wind bars and lotus flowers. The only color on my piece is the flowers, reds, yellows and orange. I explained that I had grown up in Hawaii and had been deeply influenced by Asian and Polynesian art. When I chose to adorn my arm, it was these symbols and images that seemed natural to place there.

She had been staring intently. I knew it was coming.

For the record, I get a lot of comments on my ink. The artists who worked on it did an incredible job. The clean, solid lines and great colors stand out. I have been so happy with for many years.

It was coming.

“May I touch your tattoo?”

Fascinating how lightning quick that spry, old bird could move. Before I knew it she was using both hands to work her way up my arm. Awkward level: MIDNIGHT.

The thing is… It happens all the time.

First time I tried to tell my wife about it, she just looked at me with that face. She feels that I have a penchant for hyperbole and that when I tell her things of this nature that my flair for storytelling can supersede the stronger facts of the incident. Then she saw it happen.

We were tasting in Sonoma. It was an event and they had set up the tastings by varietal. Our group headed over to the Zinfandels, I wandered to the Cabernets. Not even thinking that my shirtsleeves were rolled up past my elbows. Two cougars of the pride happened to be standing around a barrel as I walked up. It took about two minutes before they mentioned my tattoos and another minute before their hands were making their way up my arm.

I looked over across the room and my wife was giving me that look that this time said equally “Really?” ,“What the F***?” , and “I can’t believe you were right”.

While I am sure that I am partly at fault, telling Nana “hands off” ends up being even more awkward.

I wonder how many guys out there have had the same thing happen to them? If this is familiar to you, let me know in the comments.

Cheers and love,

Jeremy

Existential Wine Guy

Working Man’s Hero

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We were never supposed to like Anthony Bourdain. On the surface he could be abrasive, confrontational, and downright mean. For years he worked in restaurants, an environment where casual viciousness was not only accepted but a way of life. His drug use alone makes him an unlikely hero for any cause. But make no mistake, he was a hero… and will continue to be.

When Bourdain released his debut book Kitchen Confidential,is observations of the restaurant industry, as well as of himself in it, were hard-hitting and brutally honest without shame or apology. The candor he brought to the page was instantly relatable to anyone who had ever worked for a living. Bourdain’s was a voice of someone who had been there without privilege. He was dirty with experience. He was one of us.

Bourdain became the Johnny Cash of the food world. He was that imperfect rockstar from humble beginnings that spoke truth to power. His truth. He spoke it in way that we all want to speak: with authority and confidence (maybe with a little arrogance) with his own experience being the backbone of his convictions…even if he was wrong. He was the example that an everyman could not only be heard, but can make it to that next level.

And yet, no person is one thing. That was certainly true for Bourdain. In the same sentence he could be erudite and corse. Brash and generous . It is impossible to define him in one sentence.  The same could be said of how he conveyed his experiences. While the subtext of his writing could be examined on a political and or sociological level, ultimately, he shared the experience of being alive through the exploration of the one thing everyone human on the planet has in common: food.

Joseph Campbell, mythologist (author of Hero With a Thousand Faces), defines a hero as “Someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” By that definition, Mr. Bourdain deserves red boots and a cape. He travelled around the world to bring us sights, sounds, and flavors not easily available. He taught us not to fear the unknown. And, he did it the whole time fighting his own personal demons. A fight he recently lost. Every hero has his Ragnarok just as everyone of us will have that moment of no return.  In his passing, as in his life, Anthony Bourdain is a series of contradictions. Those contradictions in no way affect the mark he left on food, culture, and the world. He is hero to the working man not because he brought his experiences to us, but because he lifted us up to his.