Miles Per Gallon

The last 6 months are a blur, brought sharply into focus for a moment, before retracting into a gaussian image searching for clarity. A brief road-trip across the Western USA bought time. An explorer at heart, we hit the road with no plans, deciding where to sleep each night, stumbling across rare gems as well as places I see no reason to ever visit again. Rattlesnake sausages, Tarantino movie locations, incredible vistas, Guy Fieri Diners, Space X rockets, and random people in random places created a brief stillness of the mind.

Momentary bliss unceremoniously punctuated by admin. Back to school. I walked into class and recognized no one. I scanned the room. There’s so much going on. Large brown boxes stacked against the wall. Chattering students excited about what’s to come. The class is packed. Front row. Bad idea. I wasn’t fully prepped for the case (won’t happen again!). Crazy week. I hope Professor Rapp doesn’t cold call me. Spotted a seat in the back right corner. Hear we go.

Professor Rapp kicked off with a bang. Kind of like listening to a podcast at 1.5x speed. It was a refreshing change of pace. Still keeping an eye out for that cold call. Interesting case. I remember my first taste of Ice Wine. My brother brought home a bottle of Ice Wine from his European Contiki. I thought it just tasted like ordinary sweet white wine, perhaps crisper, according to 14 year old me. My brother wasn’t impressed.

My younger self did pose interesting questions. What was this supposedly unique premium wine? What should I be appreciating? It wouldn’t be until another 10 years before I’d really start to appreciate any form of wine. As reprobate undergrad students we often sourced ‘papsak’ (Afrikaans for ‘soft bag’), a silver bag of cheap, boxed wine, easily found in retailers back home, and which we heartily consumed. Thankfully, family and friends saved me, slowly introducing me to some of South Africa’s great cab sav, pinotage, shiraz, and merlot wines.

Gabriel Glas, Ice Wine knock-offs, and general discussions around authenticity stirred a few thoughts around old vs. new, traditional vs. modern, established methods vs. new age innovation. I typically defer to old school, comfortable in the romantic, albeit self-righteous, notions of pedigree attained through years of knowledge refined and passed on from one generation to the next. But we’re in Silicon Valley. We’re all about disrupting the status quo, and using technology to do so. If we can 3D print grapes identical to those used in the Ice Wine process, is that wine any less authentic? Should we pay more just because the grapes froze naturally? There is less magic in the sterility of a lab produced frozen grape. Emotions and the human connection are still important. But they are being tested.

Annoyingly patriotic as you may come to find, I was perturbed to see South Africa outside the top 10 per capita wine consumption countries. Furthermore, although a long-term growth trend, the last two years of actual/ forecast data indicates a slight downturn in production too. While the slight downturn in production can be attributed to, amongst other things, lower plantings due to an extended drought in Cape Town, it was South Africa’s per capita consumption that warranted a deeper analysis.

Azumio, an app that tracks health and other data, recently released data analyzing the habits of 717,000 men and women across 111 countries, whose steps were studied for an average of 95 days. This data suggests that on average Americans take 5,000 steps per day compared to South Africans who take 4,000 steps. Using population sizes and annual wine consumption figures, this equates to average annual miles per gallon of 311 miles/g and 401 miles/g for the USA and South Africa respectively. As human beings, South Africans have better wine consumption. Never been prouder.

July 2017 seems but a distant memory of a younger less mature version 30 point 0. Travel, experiencing the uncertainty of life, and making friends with the unknown breeds a perspective that is simultaneously casual, liberating, and enabling. Shocks to the system shake things up, force you to take stock, and unceremoniously shove you off in a new direction. Never swim against the current. But never accept that its destination is yours. And so as my December road trip ends, my journey into wine continues, excited to explore the next 10 odd weeks with you all!