Cellar Tales: How I became ‘WineBoy’

John Brown's grandparents, Saverio and Catarina Iaquinta, are seen at center above in this photo from the couple's 50th wedding anniversary A friend recently asked how I came to be such a fanatic about wine. Good question and I get it often, especially now that I have a wine blog and "WineBoy" weekly podcast. As a matter of fact, I did a little self analysis on that question years ago and I think I’ll share it with you right here and now.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, I had the privilege of being raised in a culture distinctly different from most of my contemporaries of that time, and light years away from how kids grow up today. Back in those times, my world almost exclusively revolved around home and family. My mother was Italian and my father was Irish, but since I was raised with my mother’s family, it was the Italian influence and ethnicity into which I was absorbed. My maternal grandparents were both immigrants who spoke heavily accented English and who provided their nine children and 23 grand children with the elements of Italian culture and values that have molded our extended families to this day.

Take wine, for example. As a child, I can remember scurrying down to the cellar with an empty milk jug to fetch a quart of wine from one of my grandpa’s barrels. That dark and dank room, dug deep into the earth off the main cellar, is an endless source of fond, enduring and, I hope, never-fading memories. I can still smell that musty, grapy, earthen room, see grandpa and my uncles working the giant press and taste the frothy, sour new wine as it was being put into giant oak barrels. Wine was an ordinary feature of meals in my grandparent’s home. No less important than bread, butter or pasta, it was simply considered a necessary accompaniment to meals. It was not revered, nor would it ever have been the subject of any lengthy discourse. Simply put, the wine was good, it was usually red and it was always there.

I am sure my grandfather scratches his head in wonderment each time he looks down from heaven to check on me and notices that I spend an inordinate amount of time writing and talking about wine. I can just hear his gruff, heavily accented voice saying: “Hey John, why you spending so much time with all this wine stuff? Do something important. Dig a garden, help your brother can his peppers or throw the ball with your kids.”

Well, Grandpa, you’re probably right. I do spend a lot of time on wine, but I think I’ve finally figured out why. Wine provides me with a cultural link to my past and to my heritage. It also keeps me in touch with my ancestors, long gone, and allows me to dust off their values when I need to apply them (which is often) in this crazy world. Just as importantly, it gives me the opportunity to pass along these values and this heritage to my children who, I hope, will find some way to do the same with their kids, who in turn will do the same, and so on……

So when I write or talk about the particulars of wine or food, you and grandma will know that I’m really just passing along your values to the people closest to me and perhaps to those who read what I write. Now do you understand why I’m spending so much time with this ‘wine stuff,’ Grandpa?