Finding
Familiarity When Things Are Far From Normal

BY BRENNA RITCHEY&nbsp;| APRIL 17, 2020A few weeks ago, before the storm
(whichever one comes to mind for you when you hear that word—for me, it’s
partly the days-long bouts of rain here in Santa Barbara, but mostly the other,
bigger storm: the hunker-down-and-stay-a-while one), my dad came to
town. He drove two hours to see me, to hug me, to take me out to dinner. I
hadn’t seen him in weeks. For me, it felt like a long time. Even before everything
turned a little topsy-turvy, and going a day without hearing from him made me
extra clingy.

We had no plans, really, other than to
taste some exceptional Central Coast wines—a whole two days’ worth of father-daughter
time, local food and wine, and listening to my dad rave about his Allbirds wool
tennis shoes (which, in case you didn’t know, are the comfiest shoes in
existence). I was excited to show him around, to be entirely “agenda-less”
together. The prospect of plenty of good wine and few obligations has a way of
clearing a schedule.

My schedule is pretty clear these
days, too, but for reasons other than loads of father-daughter time. Instead,
it’s a slew of cancelled plans, postponed events, empty spaces. And I don’t
think such hollow days were made for this kind of heaviness.

When my dad came up to Santa Barbara
last month (or possibly years ago; I’m not totally sure), he’d brought up a
couple bottles of Chardonnay, two of his favorites, which we’d planned on
uncorking over dinner one night. We never got around to it. That weekend ended
up being too chock-full of good things to remember about either of them busy
chilling in my fridge for future consumption. But I’m convinced the universe
made plans to keep my dad and I as busy as possible that weekend just so
that he’d forget about those two bottles, just so that he’d accidentally
leave them behind at my house. And so that on a night when there’s a storm, or
several storms—loud, rainy ones and quieter, soul-shaking ones—I’d be reminded
of the comfort of uncorking something much-loved and deeply known.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1587155494942-IMG_5127.jpg"> 

Two days filled with father-daughter time, local food and wine, and listening to my dad rave about his Allbirds wool tennis shoes. Some heavy, waterlogged nights call
for movie marathons and takeout; others call for sitting with a Napa Chardonnay
that tastes like gathering around your parents’ kitchen countertop. That
probably tastes different for me than it does for you. But I can bet there is a
wine that draws you closer to warmth and comfort and steadiness during the
topsy-turviest of times. What bottle do you reach for, on days so
absurdly far from normal?

For me, there have been a few. At one
point, the Most Significant Bottle in my cellar was an oddball Spanish varietal
a friend brought back from Ibiza. The wine itself meant less to me than the
fact that she’d lugged it halfway around the world only to tell me, You have
to share this with me. (I did.) But important bottles ebb and flow. They
matter most when they’re shared with, or given by, someone that matters.

Tonight, it’ll be a 2015 Moone-Tsai
Paige Cuvée Chardonnay, one of the bottles my dad left behind when he visited.
I don’t often reach for Chardonnay to enjoy by itself—never on cold, rainy,
murky nights like these. But this bottle is a little sacred for me: the memory
of tasting it for the first time almost two years ago in St. Helena, and the
way it has since become my dad’s go-to pick whenever I am lucky enough to share
a bottle with him. It’s synonymous with congregating in mom and dad’s kitchen
on a rare evening we are all obligationless. On those nights, my dad will spend
a few minutes, or twenty-seven, rifling through his wine cellar for the perfect
bottle; my mom will put together pre-dinner snacks she warns me and my sister will
be hot. The wine, probably the Paige Cuvée, or something else much-loved
and deeply known, gets plopped down unceremoniously in the center of the
counter. And always, without fail, my dad’s first sip of the night concludes
with a hearty ahhh, like he’s just polished off an ice-cold glass of
lemonade.

The familiarity is still there, as far
as I am now from that moment. But we are all a little soul-shaken these days.
We could use a night of communing with those we love around a kitchen counter,
drinking wine we know like the back of our hand, laughing at each other’s
absurdity and not the world’s. In the meantime, go on and open a sacred,
much-loved bottle—not because things are familiar, but because they aren’t. The
significance of what we drink shouldn’t be lost on us just because time and
place feel like such strange new worlds.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1587155506951-IMG_5179.jpg"> 

So as I drink my dad’s Chardonnay,
even as I’m miles away from him and smack-dab in the middle of a few very
different storms, I’m glad the experience is just the same as it would’ve been
every other spring, when things were a special kind of normal: the creamy savoriness
of the cheese mom brought out, the smoke of the fire dad lit in the pit right
before his first ahhh-inspiring sip of wine. (If you must ahhh by
yourself as you drink wine at home, just because, there’s no shame in that.)
All of those flavors are so present in my wine glass at this very moment.

Let’s acknowledge that these communal,
radiant kinds of nights will happen once more, and refuse to take them for
granted once they do. Maybe the most encouraging thing we can do in the waiting
is to plan the menu, wine list, and wonderful group we will share them with
when we are able.<hr>You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/equal-parts-story-and-substance-sep-2019">Equal Parts Story and Substance</a>, Brenna Ritchey, September 2019

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