I Figured It Out…
It was a Tuesday… and you know my newfound philosophy on Tuesdays. A rogue bottle of Grenache Blanc had found its way into my refrigerator. I honestly know not from whence it came or how it had been overlooked so long as to still possess its cork intact but in true Tuesday reverence I sipped at what I will tell myself was a fashionable hour.
And at around 3:19 in the afternoon on what up to that point had been a rather ordinary Tuesday, I stumbled onto epiphany… unexpectedly I conquered what had always been just out of reach of my recollection, a déjà vu that had taunted over and over again, but agonizingly I had never made the connection…
Sometimes enjoyment is as simple as unadulterated pleasure; no rhyme or reason or philosophy degree required. And other times enjoyment is a shadow of something more. And the place I’d find myself at when Grenache Blanc in my glass hinted the latter.
… In a relishing revelation, that in hindsight I can’t believe was a mystery, I put my finger on it…
Grenache Blanc is Lake Tahoe.
Sure, the grapes were grown in the relatively cool hills of Ballard Canyon not far from Santa Barbara, nurtured in its infancy by the coastal ocean not the blue-lined Sierra’s and it was crafted by Central Coast pioneer and true Grenache Blanc aficionado who calls Santa Maria home … but this wine, in my mind, genuinely belongs to Tahoe.
It is the vinification of legendary crispness of mountainous mineralesque snowmelt trickling over smooth wet-stones with a captured beam of sun that leaves a golden tint but doesn't warm the plunging depths.
It is the smell of purity with nothing overwhelming or immediately known but the natural bouquet of the brisk freshness. An aroma so akin to the picturesque lake it’s burden-melting, shoulder-lowering, spirit-raising, and energizingly relaxing.
Like the gentle rushing across the beaches of Sand Harbor, this wine lingers in some places longer before finally soaking into the shores of your palate just to be tantalizingly bombarded again by another wave that occasionally mixes with the one that came before it’s been absorbed and soaked through. Each wave different and yet the same in a way that makes you want to experience them all to infinity.
So join me at the Lake, meet me in the mountains and sip the Sierra’s no matter where you find yourself on any day of the week (but perhaps most especially Tuesdays).