4/19/23

My old coworker Maeve Coughlin changed my life when she said “Vin Rouge is opaque tights and Jordy Kay Spring Red is like sheer tights”. Fabric is experienced simply through touch but also produces a feeling elsewhere. One may feel classic and perhaps practical in opaque tights and like a party girl in sheer. The first time I saw Julie Balagny she was wearing shorts over tights. My dear friend/cooking penpal Sammie Anselmo, also a talented artist, made a series of paintings (which I am fortunate to own) about wines she drank. They mostly feature beautifully dressed figures. Because something to know about wine is that it can feel like getting dressed.
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Once I asked Mac about a certain quality of wine that I love, I didn’t know how to say it so I compared it to fabric. Nothing specific but now I might say linen, one of my favorites. I felt that many great wines are woven together very strong but not too tight, they let light pass through. This little piece of openness doesn’t undermine the wine’s identity, it just lights it up; making it more brilliant. Maybe closer to you. But there is something about the comparison to fabric, how it is something someone else shapes, the intimacy of it touching everywhere even your butt, and how over time it is imbued with memories that feels close to wine. Neatly wrapping up the technical and emotional.

You may have never touched Pinot Noir, so you might not know that the skin of the grape is quite thin. But maybe you’ve worn an oversized blouse without a bra enough times for the impression of the wine on your tongue to compare to the gentle fabric loosely and gently falling around your torso.

If drinking a wine feels like getting dressed then opening a bottle with your friends is the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
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The brilliant Kara Fowler published an essay in Wine Shots called ‘Poudre d’Escampette’, about how being natty is contagious to other parts of your life. There are many notes, more about fabric choices and eyewear than opening bottles. Fabrics worn yes, but my favorite “Never a white shirt without a stain on the breast, from tinned fish or wine, for memories.”