I guess its a reasonable question. I mean...its a beverage. Yeah, yeah-- so it comes from the earth. So does corn. And the last time I looked, no one was writing blogs and magazines about the last juicy and amazing ear they ate from a special row on the hallowed grounds of a famous farm in Iowa. Although....if someone took the time to farm-designate corn....hmm. Anyway. Maybe my thing is wine because its evocative. Literally. It happened to me once after I shared a bottle of wine produced from the very soil I am standing on here. Maybe--and it is certainly possible--the bottle that moved me, gripped me and rendered me speechless was made from these very grapes left dangling, this vintage, on the vine. Believe me, I ate those grapes after I took this photo...juuust in case. 

I suppose the "why" for me its because its a beverage that can intoxicate me in a way that has nothing to do with being drunk. Because in one small bottle there is history and geology and poetry, pain and passion, all served up in a convenient package for me to take home or to the beach. There, I can open it and almost watch, like a genie escaping from her bottle, the story of her past open and swirl until she settles into a mesmerizing story. And all that happens before dinner is even served. Its the notion that I am drinking escarpments too severe to stroll and vineyards to high to reach from places so small that literally everyone in the village knows the winemaker's name. And I am doing that thousands of miles away from where it came. And for a moment. I am there. For a moment, I am breathing.