It is common knowledge that the enjoyment of wine fosters friendships and enmities; It creates bonds that last and moments of fleeting connection... that helps you see the beauty of whoever drinks your drink next to you and temporarily relieves the harshness of routine and existential pain. Wine has been with humans for thousands of years longer than, for example, the Catholic religion, but it has been socially perceived in different ways. In the words of the philosopher Antonio Escohotado, “Western culture has managed to convert the production of these drugs (liqueurs and wines) into an art as subtle as it is diversified” (General history of drugs. Edit. Espasa).
In an art that has also suffered gender differences. Marta Robles (journalist and writer who is also ambassador and promoter of the National Wine Fair, Fenavin), does not doubt it: “The history of the world is based around the inequality of men and women and wine was not going to be any less ”. To give an example, not long ago women who drank alone were stigmatized.
“If that were a crime,” Magali Yus, public relations director of an important Spanish company and author of several books on communication, tells me, “I would be in prison.” Because that image of the executive who puts on a glass when he gets home has permeated the human being of the 21st century and no one needs to wear a tie to relax at the end of the day with a wine in hand. “It's my favorite time to drink, when I come back at night. That glass of wine helps me be with myself,” Maria José Huertas, sommelier at Paco Roncero's two-Michelin-starred restaurant, tells us.
Almost all of them agree on that solitary enjoyment. “I love having a drink while I get dressed and listen to music or when I'm cooking, with my apron on,” says actress Aida Folch. They are all aware of the dangers of a delicacy that we have plenty of in this country, but they have overcome them to savor only the good: “Many times it makes me fly, have ideas, start writing,” Folch tells us. “It awakens my senses and activates me,” says Yus, adding, “I am surprised by the people who fall asleep after a drink.” Robles barely drinks from the glass that accompanies him while he writes. "But the ritual of serving it helps me concentrate."
Could we pair a wine with a perfume, clothing or music? Huertas suggests a pairing: “Watch the movie French Suite with a Burgundy.” Yus likes to have a drink “barefoot, in jeans and a T-shirt.” Actress Patricia Vico chooses a song by Van Morrison, Days like this. Robles, on the other hand, sees himself drinking with opera (Pucini or Verdi) “but also with Across the Universe by the Beatles.” Pilar Oltra (sommelier and founder of Vinology) is committed to taking care of three factors so that the experience is perfect: “with whom, where and the conditions of service (the glass, the temperature…)”. All that above the choice of “the big bottle”.
The sommelier Huertas also remembers that in this country “there are fabulous wines in the supermarkets.” Despite everything, those who can and know, occasionally allow themselves a bottle to remember for a lifetime. Montse Escobar, founder of Women Wines, has the one recorded from the day she turned 40. “I have the label framed. They gave me a Petrus from the year I was born. And drinking that wine, now weak and oxidized, was for me an experience, above all, full of romanticism.”
They all remember a bottle, but curiously most of them tell me about the last one they shared. Vico thinks about “a Matarromera that I loved the other day, on my boy's (film director Daniel Calparsoro) birthday.” Folch remembers the Nexus that he took to a friends house a week ago and Yus mentally travels to his house in Asturias and the “chaos that my sisters, my mother and I create when we get together around food and wine.” Robles also remembers something very recent, “just yesterday, with some extraordinary friends. We mix wine and culture, which for me is essential.”
They were all attracted at some point, -after the crush of the flavor and the effect-, by the world and the history that surrounds the bottle. Maria José Huertas continues to savor that part every day. “In this profession you never stop learning and in my process, I feel guided by an elf.”
Is there a moment when you suddenly understand wine? Sometimes yes. Escobar remembers it. “I was 20 years old and a friend (in what he thought was a courtesy because he assumed that women liked white wines more) ordered a Viña Esmeralda. It is a very simple wine but the truth is that when I tasted it I felt all the aromas, the white flowers, for the first time. And that changed my way of understanding the experience.”
Something similar happened to Oltra, daughter of a winemaker and granddaughter of a winemaker. “I remember that moment perfectly. It was in Burgundy, I was 23 years old and I went to the Bayer-Gilles winery to harvest. There its owner treated me to a bottle of my birth vintage. “It was a magical moment in which I knew I wanted to dedicate myself to this world.”
If there is a ritual that no one skips when drinking, it is the toast. There are those who invent one for every occasion. But there are also those that are almost the mantra of those who raise the glass. Escobar has one: “May we always see the glass half full.” Folch's is tailored to women fed up with limiting roles: "Cheers, there's plenty of beauty." Well, that's it, health. And may the elf be with us.
