To The Wine Snob

To The Editor:

Please understand it is not my intention to bother you. I'm sure you're a very busy man or woman. But if you've ever loved and lost, I hope you can find it in yourself to understand.

This letter isn't so much for you, rather, it's for someone else. I won't cite him by name, but he'll know it's for him. If you could be so kind as to pass this along to your staff, I'll be forever indebted to you.

To The Wine Snob:

When it comes to falling in love, they say when you know, you know. I never thought I was the romantic type, or that I'd let my fingers type such a gross cliché, but on the day I met you—I knew.

After multiple attempts to reach you since that day, it's now clear to me that you didn't experience the same chemistry as I did. That's okay. Really, it is. Because while ghosting people is a savagely cruel and all-too-usual act in today's world, there's beauty and solace in knowing that the protection of my ego is no longer relevant, though it probably never was in the first place. The struggle for self-preservation is finally over. Hence, in a final act of defeated desperation, I'm writing to you now with full disclosure, without a shred of dignity left to lose or a single consequence to fear. I'm sorry it had to come down to this, but you left me no choice.

When you insisted on a going on a picnic for our first date, I wanted to puke. I went anyway, because in light of my recent track record, I was in the hard-pressed pursuit to do the exact opposite of everything I was comfortable doing when it came to men. It was the same pursuit that led me down the dating app wormhole, which led to that sweet, sweet, dopamine hit after learning you shared the same vain attraction to me, which led to a month of textual chemistry, which led to the uncomfortable moment of meeting you in person, ultimately leading to this even more uncomfortable letter.

We met at Griffith Park. I spotted you immediately. When you waved at me from across that grass-filled lawn, a war between my fight and flight instincts began. It was that familiar battle between head and gut; between relentless nerves and that small, sane part of my brain that knew this was only a date and that it wasn’t that serious. I kicked myself for not having a drink before meeting you, though somehow I managed to move my feet.

It wasn't love at first sight, but the whole image could have made for a half-decent Norman Rockwell. There I was, legs crossed, sitting on the ground, consumed by the effort to maintain good posture by keeping my back straight without looking like a serial killer. There you were, consumed with no effort whatsoever, sporting your thick-framed glasses and reading me like a book. And there between us sat a bottle of wine—a lady in red.

I can't remember what your dating profile said. Given the fact that you unmatched me, I guess now I'll never know. One thing I do remember was reading the phrase "shameless wine snob." Normally that kind of self-aware pretentiousness makes me sicker than the idea of a picnic date with a stranger, but LA is all about characters. If living here for almost ten years has taught me anything, it’s that characterization of people does nothing but lend opportunity for misunderstanding, including the titles we give ourselves. Behind every actor, musician, comedian, writer, producer, model, etc., there is a human being who farts, sweats, cries, and just wants to be loved. I had to keep reminding myself that a six-figure-earning, well-read journalist, self-proclaimed wine snob was no different.

Wrapped in a simple brown dress, I turned the unopened bottle to reveal her label. You told me it was a merlot, handpicked just for me.

I recalled a moment from back when we were nothing more than pen pals who got along famously and owed each other nothing. You had asked me a string of odd questions, like:

"What's your favorite kind of chocolate?"

and,

"How do you like your tea?"

and,

"What's your go-to drink?"

I chalked this up as a symptom of your profession, figuring if you made a living interviewing people (a very good living, at that), it was bound to trickle into your personal life. You explained that it was a way to study my flavor profile so you'd know which wine to bring. I didn't think much of it at the time—I didn't care about your attention to detail so much as I was flattered by your attention to details concerning me.

When you leaned over to grab the bottle from me, it turned me on in a way I can't explain. It wasn't love at first touch, but it was something.

Then you pulled out one of those old-school openers that are harder to use (at least for the inexperienced, Two-Buck-Chuck peasants like myself). You were a natural.

After a final twist, you slid out the last of the cork, which let out a soothing POP!—one of the few sounds in this world that brings comfort and excitement at the exact same time. You put the red-stained side of the cork up to your nose, sniffed it, then handed it to me. I assumed you wanted me to follow suit, so I did.

At that moment, I longed for those good old days, back when we could exchange words without speaking, when it was enough for me to be witty without needing to be quick (letting you assume I was too busy having a life), and when I had the luxury of looking up words I didn't know, or reading SparkNotes for all the literature you referenced. As an amateur actress with zero experience in improv, I had no choice but to come clean.

“I gotta be honest,” I confessed. “I don’t really know anything about wine. I know I like it. I know the difference between a ten-dollar bottle and an eighty-dollar bottle, but I couldn’t tell you the difference between... like... a thirty-dollar bottle and a sixty-dollar bottle.”

“That’s okay,” you reassured me. “As long as you don’t drink it out of a box.”

“Of course not,” I reassured you, lying through my teeth. I stared at the now open bottle, wondering why she was just sitting there, idle and alone, with no glasses to accompany her. You read my confusion.

“We’ll have to let her breathe for a bit. I forgot my aerator.”

Twirling my hair, I asked you what that was without a single care in the world about the answer. Sensing your monologue was coming to an end, I got that nervous, underprepared feeling of being at a job interview when the person who’s been asking all the questions asks if you have any questions, and you realize you should have been paying more attention on the words being spoken and less attention on making sure your mouth isn't doing something weird. I acted fast and changed the subject, albeit only slightly...

“I always thought merlot was a lower-tier wine.”

You stared at me like I killed your unborn child.

“...You know, like, table wine.”

I don't know why, but the only time I can't stop talking is when I don't know what I'm talking about. You made me really nervous.

You shook your head and laughed, bringing me back from the dead. You told me I was cute. I went from being the spawn of satan, plagued with ignorance, to something now adorable and pure in your eyes. I think on a subconscious level, I could tell that you enjoyed me most when I was able to give you a sense of intellectual superiority. I didn't realize it at the time, but I began to play my own kind of made-up character, a role I’ve always been comfortable playing—the curious and unassuming blonde.

“Do you know why merlot has such a bad rep?”

Your eleventh rhetorical question of the hour.

“No. How come?”

I forgot what we were even talking about at that point, but I figured if I kept up my intrigue, I could keep yours up too.

“One word. Sideways.”

I didn't get it. But you knew that.

“You call yourself an actress and you’ve never seen the movie Sideways?”

The wine snob was also a movie snob. I felt naked and stupid, exposed for the charlatan I always felt like. I wasn’t in love yet, but for whatever reason, I really wanted you to like me.

“The whole film is about these two guys who go wine tasting in the Central Coast. All it took was one line from Paul Giamatti’s character. He says, ‘If anyone orders merlot, I’m leaving. I’m not drinking any fucking merlot!’ And that was it. Just one line, and the whole varietal has suffered the consequences ever since.”

You pulled two big, stemmed glasses from your tote.

“That’s okay, though. More for us.”

GLIP GLIP GLIP went the bottle, her insides spilling into my empty glass. And another GLIP GLIP GLIP into yours.

You lifted your glass high in the air and I watched as you gave it a big swivel; if it were any grander of a gesture, your liquid tornado would have spilled everywhere. I wished that it did. You needed to be humanized.

In true show-and-tell fashion, you went on to explain the significance of the red lines dripping down the sides of the glass. From this particular lecture, I learned these string droplets were called wine legs. I couldn’t tell you anything about what these legs mean, except for that they were very pretty in the sunlight.

After what felt like a lifetime, you finally lifted your glass for a toast. I lifted mine. Unsurprisingly, you took the lead.

“To Merlot, and to all its misunderstood glory.”

“To Merlot,” I repeated, forgetting the rest.

CLINK.

And that was it. It was game over. Nothing you did or said mattered anymore. Nothing I said or did mattered anymore.

I know I started this by saying I wasn't the romantic type. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe romance is just another misunderstood word. Maybe romantic love, in one kind of form, is something only nature can provide. With all the contrived parameters of adulthood, love started to feel like it was incapable of existing. But not anymore.

It didn't happen at first sight—the outfit was a boring color with unmemorable font. It didn't happen at first smell, after weirdly putting that cork up to my nostrils and having no clue what I was smelling for. It didn't happen at first sound—when the bottle opened, it was the same as all the others. It wasn't even at first taste, when my lips touched her smooth and soft body, letting her legs wrap around my entire chest. But somewhere between that first glass and my last, something primal came over me. Falling in love always seems to happen in the undefinable middle.

I once heard that female memory is more grounded in feeling than in detail. If that's true, the unfortunate consequence is not remembering the details that matter, like a newfound love's name. I've done everything in my power to find it. I've searched every wine store. I've looked at every site. I know you probably think I'm just looking for an excuse to talk to you. I promise that's not it. From the bottom of my heart, I'm begging you. I just need to know the name of the bottle you brought that day, and you'll never hear from me again.

Consider this note as not only a plea, but a thank you. Not just for the introduction, but for everything it taught me.

Yours truly,

You already know.