Wine Flower

I’m a fact person. A science person. Everything I eat, the vitamins I take, what I wear, how I exercise, what I drink—it’s all based on fact. If I’m not sure about something, I look it up. I’m that girl reading peer reviewed studies before she goes to bed. There are things I just have to know, not only about health and nutrition, but also about history and sometimes weird stuff.

So, when I happened to bump into Gerardo on North Plankinton Ave and he asked me on a date I said, “It’s a funny word date. It used to be called courting. Everyone knows that. But the word date wasn’t used the way we use it until 1896 when a writer named George Ade used it in the Chicago Record.” I paused to see if Gerardo had anything to add, but he didn’t. He just stood there on the sidewalk squinting in the bright sun as if all thoughts and words had emptied from his head, so I went on.

“And back then,” I said, with extra enthusiasm in my voice because my arms were wrapped around a bag of groceries and I couldn’t gesture with my hands, “the whole idea of women dating was shocking. A lot of people thought it made a woman look like a floozy to parade around town letting a man buy her drinks and food. Of course, that’s not true now, but we should both chip in for the bill, since women now have the means to support themselves. Don’t you think?”

Then I thought maybe I'd gone too far. Maybe I'd said too much. Maybe he didn’t like to know things like that. "Um, so yeah, I'll go. I should have said that first."

“All right,” he answered, shoving a hand into his pocket. “I was thinking about maybe a wine tasting. Would you like that?”

Not only did he have nice forearms, but he was direct and to the point like a well proven fact. But instead of answering right away, I shifted my grocery bag to one side and started digging through my purse for my phone because when we went our separate ways, I knew I had to start looking things up about wine. I mean I’d never been to a wine tasting before. How could I have a conversation about wine when I knew nothing at all about it. I hardly even drank wine and Gerardo probably knew a ton. Guys who wear button down shirts usually know about things like wine.

“Is that a yes?” he said, and his expression, like he could barely wait for me to answer, reminded me of how he used to sit on the edge of his chair in Anthropology class a couple years ago.

“Oh,” I answered, suddenly aware that my hesitation was sending all sorts of signals I didn’t want to send. I smiled and shifted my grocery bag again. “Yes. I’d love that. Totally.”

“How about we meet right here in a couple of hours. How’s four o’clock?”

“Could we make it four-thirty?” I said, hoping to gain an extra half hour to learn as much as I could about wine before I thoroughly embarrassed myself.

At four, Gerardo showed up with a picnic basket that had something clinking together inside. I hadn’t had much time to study up on wine. There was way too much to learn in a couple of hours. I’d just have to fess up that I was born a country bumpkin and still knew nothing about wine.

“What’s in the basket?” I asked. It sounded like bottles, but who brought their own bottles to a wine tasting?

“I’ll show you when we get there,” he said. He asked me if I preferred to walk or drive, and I said walk because I’d read that Harvard Health includes walking as one of the five best exercises a person can do. Besides, it’s common knowledge that drinking and driving don’t mix.

And then I asked, “Where’re we going?” I should have asked that first.

“To the river,” said Gerardo.

“The river?” I asked, perplexed. “Is there a wine tasting event in the park?”

Gerardo smiled and took my hand. His grip was firm but kind. “You’ll see,” he said.

Once in the park, we walked across a bed of thick grass down to the river. My skirt blew this way and that in the musty, earthy breeze coming off the water.

I took in a deep breath. “Do you smell that?” I said. “Reminds me of fishing on the St. Lawrence with my grandparents.”

“Makes me think of swimming in the creek with my cousins,” said Gerardo.

I thought about telling him how the olfactory bulb, responsible for smelling, is connected to the amygdala, one of the oldest structures of the human brain and that’s why smells can bring back powerful memories, but talking about olfactory bulbs seemed a little nerdy, so I just said, “Smells are so primal, aren’t they?”

He nodded and pointed to an empty bench close to the riverbank. There was a boulder with a flat top right in front of the bench. “What do you think?” I liked the way he kept asking my opinion. Though, if he asked me about a wine’s balance or about a wine’s anything, I’d have to confess.

“Looks great,” I said, plopping down on the bench. “But I thought we were going to a wine tasting.”

“We are,” he said. “Hang on.” And he set the basket down and lifted the cover. He removed a white tablecloth covered with tiny colorful birds and laid it over the rock so it was like a table. He put the basket there too and met my eyes. It was the first time I really looked at his eyes. They were brown like polished wood.

“It’s time to discover your wine,” he said.

“Well….” I tried to explain. “I don’t have a lot of experience with wine. There’s so much to know. Of course, I’ve had it once or twice, there’s just a lot of terminology…”

“Don’t worry,” he said, sitting down beside me. “I’m far from being an expert. I actually have a subscription to a wine club, and they just send me wines they think I’ll like.

“But how would they know…?”

“I know. But they do. Check this out,” he said, holding up his phone. He put in a website: https://www.brightcellars.com/ . “Do you have your phone?”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I got out my phone. Gerardo directed me to the Bright Cellars website. Once there, I clicked a link which took me to a quiz. It looked like fun, so I went ahead and answered a bunch of questions about random things I liked. “Oh, I get it. They know what wines I like based on how I answer the questions in the quiz. Science.”

“Well?” Gerardo said. “What’d you get?”

“Merlot’s at the top.”

“Wonderful!” said Gerardo. “I just happen to have a merlot and a couple of glasses right here. Welcome to wine tasting!”

Gerardo took two glasses out of the picnic basket and set them on our rock table. He poured one for each of us. “A glass of merlot it is.” He handed it to me like it was a flower on a glass stick.

"I also brought an Argentine Malbec that’s supposed to taste like blueberries and a pink wine that’s supposed to be good with pizza. We can try all three.” He set out the other two bottles. “And, oh,” he reached into the basket again and lifted out a small tray of cheese, crackers, and deli roast beef cut into little squares. Then he set out a container of Pizza Pringles and some Oreos. “There’s no wrong way to enjoy wine.”

As soon as he said that my shoulders relaxed. I kicked off my shoes and crossed my legs underneath my skirt on the bench. “To the river,” I said, lifting my glass. “Where hundreds of years ago, fur traders and Native Americans lived.”

Gerardo smiled. “To the river,” he said. “And to the rock.” He patted our rock table. “You have to admit it’s a decent rock.” He took a sip and then said, “And did you know merlot is rich in antioxidants?”

“It is?” I said, hoping he’d tell me more.

“Oh yeah, the facts are in. All the red wines are good for you in moderation. Resveratrol. It comes from the skin of the grapes.”

He didn’t even have to finish the sentence. I was already hooked.