Thirty Days of Thanks - day 19

Last week I wrote a little bit, ok a lot, about beer.  Well, today I am thankful for wine.  I'm a fan of wine for many of the same reasons I enjoy beer - there are so many varieties and thus something for everyone (except my sister!), it's something that seems to bring people together, and all of those types of things.  With wine, however, there's the added element of anticipation.

Knowing full well that there are some beers that are only released once a year (Dark Lord, the pumpkin ales and Christmas ales), to me there's something a bit more special about the release of wine, and of one in particular.  I look forward with glee each year to the third Thursday in November: beaujolais nouveau release day.  Maybe I’m a little dorky about it, but I think there’s something cool about drinking the juice of something that was so recently on the vine.  While Thanksgiving certainly isn’t the beginning of a new year, it is the beginning of another holiday season, a time most of us share with the people we love.  Beaujolais nouveau is a unique beverage to accompany giving thanks for memories past and looking forward to good times ahead.

Anticipation with wine manifests itself in other ways, too.  I have open a couple of bottles recently that were purchased almost a decade ago, and I have more that need to be uncorked within the next year or so.  Looking back, I really don’t remember where I even imagined life would take me from the points at which it was all purchased.  That’s something I need to be better about as I purchase wine in the future.

Then there’s the wine I’m cellaring for the next couple of decades, the Bordeaux that was purchased as a 1^st birthday gift for my first nephew to open on or after his 21^st.   I’m hoping this will become a tradition as new nieces and nephews come along (my niece born in 2011 didn’t get any since it was a bad year in Bordeaux, but I’m hoping 2013 will be a good vintage year).  Anticipation is the prominent feeling sometimes, not only when it comes to the wine, or where life will take me, but in terms of who these little people will become.  At the very least, I hope they like the wine!