10/11/2011
Thoughts on Wine, Mind and Sensory Exploration
A great wine mentor once told me ‘knowledge should be free’. I completely agree.
If you have found a passion and are so learned on a particular subject, that your heart starts pumping every time you have the chance to discuss it, then it’s time to cultivate the art of teaching. ..
A great teacher finds the barriers people have accumulated, and slowly peels them back. Not everyone is as open minded to allow this, to expose their softness. But that’s exactly where the opening is. Knowledge, like love, prefers that entrance, having a greater likelihood to take root.
A master teacher knows when the student is ready for this type of sensory expansion. And will never rush into anything.
After sometime together, a moment can be right where one sentence, one sniff and one sip, is all it takes. And there it is- a doorway to greater perception opens.
Then you’re in trouble…
People have left their businesses, law school, Wall Street and major life practices in pursuit of their fascination of wine. Not only the love they have for it, but the love it gives back in endless essence and satisfaction.
That love can encompass never ending learning (always providing growth), and a mystery so enchanting, once you get one glimpse of her truth, she can leave you sniffing and swirling in circles day after day, for just one more blossom of her beauty.
She's there, are you listening?
Some people say to me ‘I just don’t have a palate’ or ‘I don’t get what people are talking about with their complex wine descriptions’.
I get it. I was there too. And now that I know, I would never go back.
I find each authentic wine that whispers secrets, can and does, unlock more doors, slowly and subtly becoming the building blocks of knowledge.
Subtleness can elude the untrained senses and this is where so much has to be unlearned to aquire a more authentic skill. As with anything great, you must clear your mind, practice and feel it. Ideally with someone who encourages sensory expansion, and understands, in the grand scheme of it all (or even that which pertains only to wine) they will never know it all.
But! There certainly is more.
There is always more.
My request is to always be humble and let its mystery come to you. When wine truly starts to sing, it can move like waves, whispers on a breeze or like a panther in the night. The muse can move and enchant you- and never the same way twice.
To capture this passion, you already have everything you need.
So leave judgments at the door.
Delight your senses and expand your mind.
You already have the tools you need.
Just sharpen and refine.
Knowledge is free. And I believe, like wine, it’s meant to be shared.
As always, I’m here for questions and comments.
Amanda Schark
