Wine School: A Spouse's Perspective

Scott was supportive of Laura's desire to go to wine school while we were here. "You already know most of what they're going to teach you, but if you need the piece of paper to prove it to someone else, here's the perfect chance to get it," he said. Scott, unlike Laura, isn't a wine snob. In fact, he's more of a wine slob. Laura recently gave him a taste test of red wines, where he managed to get five out of five varietals wrong. Basically, he knows three kinds of wine: red, white and pink and he still uses the "choose the pretty label" and "expensive must be better" methods to pick wine in the grocery. Being married to Laura, he has picked up a few things: don't put red wine with fish (usually) or white wine with beef (usually), don't discriminate against wine just because it has a screw top and don't serve wine in plastic glasses. That's about it. He isn't even ready for the beginner class at Wine and Spirits Insitute, much less the advanced. So when Laura came home talking about the "fifth sense" being umami and discussing "terroire" and going on about sherry, I thought she was referring respectively to soybeans from Japan, the dog and my sister-in-law respectively. But I did what husbands do best: I listened attentively, looked interested, nodded approvingly at the right points and basked once again in the sheer pleasure of knowing that I married a really smart woman who's even smarter now. By the way, dear, can you bring me a glass of wine: whatever's red and on the counter will be just fine.