As a wine guru, I’ve been told it is my duty – nay, destiny – to be a watch dog of other so-called “wine experts” that are out there masquerading as legit sources of info. However this sounds like a lot of work so luckily for me, I only PRETEND to be a wine guru.
Believe it or not, I know next to nothing about wine (although last night, in my proudest moment, someone handed me a glass of wine and I said “is this a Temperanillo?” and I was TOTALLY right). I know…believe me, I know; if you’re a regular reader, this comes as a very serious shock, but it’s true. I’m pretty dense.
As a pretend wine-buff, I feel it is important for me to learn and absorb all I can about this industry and culture. So I did what any professional blogger would do…I asked my mommy.
“You should check out the ‘winery dog’” she said. “They’re all over. Every winery has them.”
Right…because whenever I have a glass of wine, I’m like “Dang! Where’s a dog I can play fetch with?”
But why, fair reader, are these so common around the wine world? And even more so: Why are there so many coffee table books about them???
I’d imagine it’s the same reason there’s a stupid website dedicated to weird pictures of cats with clever (I use the term “clever” very liberally here) captions: People love animals.
This is only magnified by wine, which is also known commonly as the following: “Cupid’s Favorite Drink”, “Love Juice”, “The Cuddle Maker” and of course “Giggle Potion” (PS: All of these are mine. I made them up on the spot. That’s the kind of genius that comes with an advertising career. Everything is copyrighted though so don’t get any ideas).
What I’m having trouble getting at is best summed up by Kevin Kline in the adorable romantic comedy “French Kiss”. Kline says “You see Meg Ryan…in order to make a good wine, you have to enjoy drinking it”. Wine makers enjoy drinking wine, and once the wine is drunken (Wait that’s not right…Drank? Dranked? Guzzled? Yup, it’s guzzled) they want to play with their dog.
Check out www.winedogs.com to learn more about this fetish…I mean habit.
