A Map and A Glass of Wine – seek. follow. love.
My husband, Chad, is in the wine business. He started his own wine education and consulting company almost three years ago called (Un)Common Grape. He's written blogs and interviewed people, made videos and podcasts, and poured wine for hundreds of people, telling them stories about wineries and grapes and projects from specific winemakers. We've traveled to wine regions and wineries, getting to know the people and the area through the grapes in our glasses. I've attended a few distributor wine tastings with him in the past, too. These distributors often have large portfolios, with hundreds, if not thousands of different wines from all over the world. So the tastings are long and intense with table after table after of wines.
I know a bit about wine, probably more than the average wine drinker, because Chad teaches me and I make an effort to learn so that we can talk about all the nuances. It's important to him, so it's become important to me. I ask him questions and guess at answers to see if I'm close. I always hope he sees my knowledge as his victory. I strive to be his greatest student as he strives to educate the world about making wine a part of life.
And this is why I fell in love with Chad.
He was talking about a wine region map, which shows where different vineyards are located, often gives elevations or sun exposure, shows soil variations, and a variety of other terroir-related information. (If you don't know what terroir is, (Un)Common Grape is a great place to start learning a little more about wine!) See, my husband is an information-lover, a map-lover, a nerdy-type. He didn't spend an hour with this woman at that tasting last year because she was charming or beautiful or Italian, she had a map.
When Chad and I were first dating, we were in Paris together one night at the top of the Arc de Triomphe, working out math problems, trying to figure out if it's possible to take photos of the 360-degree view of the Paris streets and create wallpaper from them for a rectangular room (we decided you really can't because the angles would be warped around the square corners of the room. You really need a round room to keep the view from getting distorted). It was silly and romantic and completely pointless really, but we were having fun, working out the problems, challenging each other and solving the puzzle.
Now we solve our puzzles together on Saturday mornings in the form of crosswords over breakfast.
I always knew I would need to find a guy who wanted to talk about serious, intellectual things, a guy who wouldn't think I'm crazy when I get excited about figuring out math problems for a sewing project or video editing project. I love learning and discussing and designing, and so does Chad. And that's one of the biggest reasons why I love him.
On Monday, he's starting a new job with a wine distributor, where he'll deal in spreadsheets — another one of his favorite things. More than that, he'll be learning new things and meeting new people, drinking delicious wines and traveling to new places (hopefully taking his most dedicated student along with him). And I'm so proud. I'm so proud that I get to be married to this man who is always learning and teaching me and sharing his life with me. I'm so excited for his new adventure. I'm so lucky he's supported all of mine over the past year.
Good luck, my love. I'm so proud of you and happy for you and excited to see where life takes us next. Wherever it is, I'll bet we'll have a map and a glass of wine to guide our path.
This is such a wonderful post to encourage Chad. Your marriage is one that I look up to.
I giggled about the map part. I love maps too; this is one of the many reasons I enjoy being your friend. Maps are exciting and have endless potential for dreaming of adventure!
It is a joy and honor to watch you be his student and encourage him so frequently. This was a beautiful piece to show your endless support.
This says it all. Mom is right you are his perfect match. Your writing is always a gift.
Please tell him to keep in touch. Wine dinners??tastings?? who is he working for ?
Thanks Triscia! He's working fora distributor in the city, but he's always available! He's working on a wine tasting for this month, so we'll let you know!