Fine Like Wine

I tried Kombucha for the first time last night and it’s a no for me dawg. It tasted like lightly fizzed vinegar…

But! As with many random things in my life, it got me thinking about an age-old adage, “Fine like wine” I admit, I have used this saying many a time but honestly, until yesterday, it hadn’t really hit me what it really meant. 

And to be honest, I was the proverbial wine that gave myself the revelation rather than that foot water named Kombucha that all you wannabe hipsters are drinking or the bottle of Dom Perignon Vintage 2004 I have displayed proudly waiting for a special moment to drink (I think making it to 2021 might qualify because the way shit is looking. Shit, that is a different post in and of itself) 

I was cleaning my house (which was well overdue a tidy – I am being kind to myself) when a song reminded me of a time when I cussed someone out in a club in Boston (one of hundreds of times in between the age of 14 and ahem, 30-something). I stopped sweeping some old dust (don’t judge me you bastards, it’s been a hard COVID slog) and thought about how fortunate those of you who are in my life now compared to those of who were in my life when I was in the throes of hormonal regulation in my early twenties (special shoutout to The Jamaican, who although he was an absolute tit, put up with some seriously volatile behaviour from me) 

The overused analogy of “Fine like Wine” lavished on wrinkled ass Californian housewives seems unfit for them and really seemed to have been made for me in that moment of epiphany when I realised that all the acidic grapes that were crushed during my youthful days like when I shoved my ex Dante (faux name) at a party in DC for dancing with some geriatric bird would turn into a smooth vintage ready for sipping in 2020 and benefit some yet-to-be-found wealthy, emotionally stable, man who doesn’t cheat and whose family isn’t batshit crazy. 

Subtle bubbles of delicacy that were previously large pulp of fowl language and unchecked rage (okay, I still curse like a sailor at times). To think that I could never imagine myself declining an invitation to an argument and can now selectively and subtlety troll people (often times they don’t even notice – those are the ones I enjoy). 

In my teenage years, I was prone to drinking MD 20/20 (1. I was too young to be drinking that – technically I was too young to be drinking alcohol. 2. They have the got damn nerve to be marketing that shit as wine. 3. No matter what flavour you drank, they all tasted the same – like death. 4. Drinking them nearly always resulted in me doing something rather foolish and contributed to me losing childhood friendships). I like to imagine teenage Reds as MD 20/20, volatile, no matter what outfit or shade of fun she was having. Along the way, I underwent some alchemy and was transformed into something else (let’s face it, this analogy is not going to work because Mad Dawg 20/20 will never transform into piss water on this planet, in this lifetime, no matter how decent my writing is)

As we age, tastes change, tolerance levels decrease and our views of the world are altered, for the better I hope. I came to this place a lot later in life than many. I probably only matured this year, to be fair. That vinegar-like tolerance for fuck-boys and nonsense reduces and the craving for stability, love and peace starts to permeate your thoughts. 

But like wine, everything has a shelf life. Apparently, my Dom Perignon needs to be consumed before 2025 (God, I pray the years following 2020 are hold something greater than this one or at least the lessons of our current year make us see and feel beauty in technicolour. I’m digressing again, oops!).  While it seems a way off, none of us knows our time, the bottle might drop before 2025 or that old age that we always thought was years away is suddenly on our doorstep. 

I think I’ll enjoy that small window that a sommelier will tell you have to enjoy those rare wines, until the bottle is empty or otherwise.