"There are not many things in life better than a great bottle of wine to pair with an incredible meal with even better friends. I want to help you find that pairing."
I came up in restaurant kitchens and dining rooms serving tables at seventeen, pouring wine at twenty two, eventually earning an Associates Degree in Enology and Viticulture and achieving a deep understanding of the wine making process from the vine to the bottle. I learned to speak the language of wine fluently: appellation, terroir, malolactic fermentation, residual sugar.
Which after years of work and schooling I got to see and expierence that wine can be very intimidating.
The menus. The ritual. The fear of pronouncing Cinsault wrong in front of the a group. Wine seemed to have this ability to make people feel foolish and that bothers me. At the end of the day, wine is just fermented fruit. It's humble. It comes from the earth and from someone's hands and from a very specific piece of land on a very specific year when it rained just enough and not too much.
"Wine does not need to be mysterious or intimidating. It needs to be shared. Ideally with something coming out of the kitchen."
— The founding idea behind Collective EffervescenceI started this newsletter because I wanted a place to write about wine the way I talk about it with friends and family: with enthusiasm, with a bit of history, with the occasional strong opinion, and mostly with food on the table. No gatekeeping. No elietism. Just an open seat at the table.
Collective Effervescence — this term comes from Émile Durkheim, who observed the feeling of energy and harmony when people are engaged in a shared purpose. It is a lively enjoyment of life that manifests when we share moments with others. Collective Effervescence is exactly that. It's an invitation to get together with friends with the right bottle of wine that makes everything taste a little better, and the conversation last a little longer.