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From the Winter 2011 issue of SONOMA magazine
Those in search of a Wine Country romance should forgo online dating and other matchmaking services and instead seek the expertise of a trained sommelier. Inasmuch as a good som might recommend a hearty burgundy to accompany your roast beef (“The astringency of the tannins cuts the viscosity of the fat,” he wrote knowingly), he or she may also see merit in matching your love of lounging on the beach with, say, a potential mate’s desire to bury his/her head in the sand. Ergo, if you can pair wine and food, you can pair people. I bet.
Soms know more than just wine. You’ve heard the expression, “Som guys have all the luck...”? Sure, that may look like a typo but it’s really a pun obscuring a little known fact: Sommeliers get laid. A lot. No matter if they’re men or women, gay, straight–soms have it going on.
No, it’s not the size of their corkscrews or the fullness of their wine racks, it’s because their apothecaries of amour and wine are their magical elixir. Or as it might have been sung by a ’70s glam band, “Pushin’ the potion cushions the motion.” And though that band never existed, it should’ve.
Now, I'm not a sommelier, but I play one on TV, or at least on YouTube (OK, someone once rolled some video of me at a wine party and uploaded it, guaranteeing forever that I can't go into politics).
The point is, I know wine through hard-won experience and I know matchmaking by enjoying as many matches as possible before getting flagged by the Centers for Disease Control as a “person of interest.” This is why I’m more than qualified to aid singletons in their affaires de coeur. In Wine Country, I’ve either slept with it or slept it off.
This much I know–opposites attract, until you’ve paired a sober person with a drunk. Then the attraction seems to be one-way. And always the wrong way. This is how it was explained to me by the girl with the “I Heart Sonoma” tattoo.
Prior to the sexual revolution, the pattern seemed to find a drunk man hitting on the sober woman or, worse, a sober man hitting on the drunk woman. Both are deplorable. Fortunately, a couple generations ago, gender equality and intoxication found each other making out in a coat closet. Since then, women have frequently gotten drunk and hit on drunk men, sober men and even each other whilst inebriated. Thusly, the opportunities to find someone to hold their hair, whether that be while barfing or biting the pillow, are significantly up. And wine should be credited for its part and often is, later in divorce court.
As any sommelier-qua-matchmaker will tell you, wine is an aphrodisiac. But not for the same qualities that biochemists attribute to, say, chocolate. The neurotransmitters anandamide and serotonin, both naturally occurring in the seeds of the cacao tree, are said to contribute to feelings of euphoria during sex. Wine, however, has only one active ingredient–alcohol–which lowers inhibition, judgment and a general sense of good taste when it comes to selecting a partner. In short, if sex were a nation, wine would be the democratizing force, the great equalizer and as potent a symbol of a mighty union as the American flag. Unless, you have too much wine, in which case you might find your flag at half-mast, and that’s no fun–am I right, ladies?
Likewise, according to a 2005 North Dakota University study, drinking impairs depth perception. This accounts for many of the shallow personalities too often found in bed after a few bottles. This is why, when dating, my then-future-wife told me I have a “holographic personality." Her perception of my depth was an illusion. Fortunately, being her husband has brought me new dimensions, like shared credit debt and the realization that everything I thought I knew about women is wrong. At least the other Wine Country husbands don’t hate me as much now.
Which is to say, my wine and partner pairing strategy worked. As Euripides wrote, "Where there is no wine there is no love." To which we Wine Country folk reply "In wino veritas."
Daedalus Howell’s I Heart Sonoma, is available at Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble NOOK, and the Sony Reader store.
From the Winter 2011 issue of SONOMA magazine
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