2006-01-22 - 12:42 p.m.

..a wall grape-hyacinth...

Last night I went out to a wine tasting at my local wine shop. They were holding a special wine tasting and their main guest was the head of Recanati - a young but apparently famous winery in Israel.

As I walked to the back of the room, I realized that the dominant language was not English..I had walked into little Tel Aviv (a comment also uttered by the Recanati guest). I really felt like the odd fish in the pool.

I also felt like the token ignoramous. I just didn't realize the significance of the Recanati family...apparently they are the Rockefellers of Israel. In a moment when I had temporarily overcome my awkwardness of being alone at a party and knowing absolutely no one, I walked up to the honored guest and started asking him questions. "Where is your winery? and where is the vineyard?" Just as he started to sketch out a map on the wall with his finger, one woman came up with three bottles of wine for him to autograph...I would have loved to ask him more ignorant questions about the vines (grown at 800m near the border of Lebanon), but his fame in this crowd made it rather difficult. I didn't even try, but rather had a few strained conversations with a few of the other odd fish - mostly long white-haired white males with earrings over fifty. In fact our conversations were pleasant, but they just didn't feel very natural.

It all felt very weird to me. I'm not a good party person to begin with.. I couldn't tell if it was my awkwardness or the wine itself - I firmly believe that situation influences your tastebuds - in any case the wine it was simply not to my taste this evening, and I certainly wasn't interested in paying the exorbitant price for the one bottle I sort of liked.. I said a cordial thank you and goodbye to the owners and promised to return for their tasting on 11 February - this time to experience Little Roma and Italian wines.