International Wine Smuggler
admin | June 18th, 2009 - 10:17 amTodd may look like the boy next door but when it comes to wine he’s got balls of steel. After seeing his amazing video I suspected there was more behind his wine discovery in Europe… read for yourself.
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Three European Wino Lessons
It may not be the most “get outta here!” of paths, but I became a full-fledged wino after studying in Western Europe during the classic junior year abroad experience. Being a French and Linguistics major at a private engineering school (University of Rochester, NY) gives one an itch to see more of the world, for sure.
I was 20 years old and not allowed to drink in my own home country, but when the large Italian family (in number, not size) at the seaside resort I worked at passed around pitcher after pitcher of table wine at 2am after we’d closed the restaurant, who was I to decline? That was my first lesson:
Wine as communicator – Their heavy Southern dialect and my textbook Italian merged together quite melodiously after a glass or two. (Or five.)
Coming back to Ohio for Christmas after a Fall semester in Seville sent me through customs at JFK where, still technically underage, I had buried in my luggage a bottle of red wine from the Italian restaurant and an amazing sherry I had discovered in Spain. I simply had to share these gifts with my family! They weren’t “drinkers” but surely they, too, would see the light with these hand-picked selections from my fledgling wine club. That return trip was my second lesson:
Wine as adrenaline rush (via contraband): Beads of sweat formed on my upper lip as the agent gave me a cold stare when I said I had nothing to declare, but fortunately for me, I have an eternally boyish mug that always looks pretty innocent. ”Who me? Smuggle wine into the States? Gosh-golly-willickers, Mr. Customs Officer, that would be cr-cr-criminal!” (He let me through without inspecting my luggage. But my family didn’t see the light. Nerds.)
It wasn’t until a spring semester in Paris that everything came together and I started to buy wine in local stores simply to complement dinners with others. Wine finally became an experience to be shared with friends, old and new. In any language. Whether they bathed and wore deodorant or not. (C’mon, we’ve all ridden on buses in Rome in the sweltering summer heat, right?)
So although I was denied the 21-year old’s American rite of passage because I was already conversant in the ways of wine on that “meh!” birthday, I wouldn’t change anything for that third lesson:
Wine as life.
*she chuckles, yea, she snorts*
You neglected to say “regardless of whether they shave or not”…
Bravo, bello! You have yet again managed to get a little laughter out of me… perhaps one day you drive me to drink
?
(And linguistics, eh? Me phonetics…)
Ha. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a life’s goal to get you to drink wine, Lady Andrea…I started years ago with the sugary, fruity stuff, after all (white zinfandels, if memory serves)…but it just seemed like a natural proposition since you’re so entrenched in the Murphy-Goode campaign.
As for the lack of shaving…that one didn’t strike me as much. Are you saying that Germany is more hirsute (my big word for the day) than the Mediterranean countries?
*she runs to wikipedia*
*wait*
Actually, I cannot speak for the Mediterranean countries… but women can braid their hair here (oh.my.gosh.)…
(Is this conversation really happening?)
Thanks for the new word — so your main linguistic course of study was semantics? But can you share with me the etymology of the word hirsute?
[...] to Frank Gutierrez’s blog, at least, where I guest-posted earlier [...]
The braiding of hair. Indeed, a new level of conversation. Ha. At least it’s pseudo-cosmopolitan since we’re talking about Europe!
I took classes in semantics but it wasn’t a focus. I like ambiguity in semantics as a function of syntax…more of the left-brain structure of things…FASCINATING.
Etymology? Blech.
Etymology is fascinating! Have a look at porcellan–and then *blurk*!
(talking about European culture… *she shakes her head*)
No surprise that you like the ambiguity of it all. Kind of like the fleeting taste of earthiness after swallowing a Murphy-Goode …
But I digress, for *this* topic goes over my head and might make me a bit woozy.
I have to pipe in just to say that I majored in phonology back in college (with my practical work done on Yapese). After all this is over, maybe we can band together in some sort of enterprise requiring a Bacchanal band of linguists – there must be a need for such a thing!
And while I’m not hugely into etymology, I did my stint with Latin, so can tell you that hirsute (almost) undoubtedly just comes from the Latin word ‘hirsutus’, which means shaggy – lots of bugs have the word ‘hirsutus’ in their taxonomic names as well, if they are hairy little critters.
All this by way of saying… great post and great story, Todd! International wine smuggler is a great thing to have handy to tack on to a resume.
Nice work, Brendan!
I figured it was a Latin derivative, but stayed with the offspringers (French, Italian, Spanish) in college and never really ventured up the tree.
As for the need for a band of linguists…my diploma would like to think it wasn’t all in vain.