I’ll admit from the outset that I’m somewhat of a technophobe. It took me awhile to get a cellphone that had e-mail capabilities, I fumble around with Excel like Garo Yepremeian in the ’73 Super Bowl and need my eight year old son to help me set up a password on my computer.
But with all this said, can we please, please slow down when it comes to wine innovation?
So now some resourceful restauranteurs are using a keg system to serve wine by the glass, making it not only cheaper but less wasteful, as the wine can last far longer than it would with a corked bottle behind the bar. Yes, all these things on the surface are good – it’s hard to complain when the wine being poured into a glass you have purchased is as fresh and flavorful as if the bottle was just opened and yet, at the same time, part of the allure of wine is the ancient way its rituals have been passed down for thousands of years.
In some ways, I want my friendly neighborhood bar keep to grab that bottle of Pinot from behind him, pull the cork and pour my glass right in front of me instead of having to put on a Hazmat suit, flip the carbon filtration system to the ready position – which can only be done together with another co-worker who must turn his key at exactly the same moment, set the pour spout to “ON” and wait for the wine, forced by nitrogen, to make its serpentine journey from wherever, into a glass to be served.
I know I love my Petite Sirah cut with a little N. Don’t you?
Now you may ask, “Okay, Daddy Traditionalist, what about screw tops?” Okay, I like them. Not to replace corks but just to assist in my laziness. I love the feeling of going to open a school night wine and finding a screw top. Means I’ll be drinking sooner. But I prefer when I buy wine at a restaurant, to enjoy the whole experience of having the wine presented to me, the cork being pulled by the sommelier or server and having the wine come to my glass that way.
Call me old fashioned, call me a curmudgeon, heck call me about to turn 44 (hopefully that explains some of my charming contradictions).
For me, wine is one of life’s pleasures that does not require updating with fast aging swizzle sticks, Wine Pod’s (is Apple suing?) or any other Jetsons-esque machinery for getting me my glassful of vino.
Just pull and pour, baby.
