A young woman speaks from the bottom of a wine bottle

There’s something exhilarating about drinking just a little bit too much red wine together with the object of your affection.

Imagine Burgundy, 1978. It was a time for late bloomers as a cold and rainy spring followed an exceptionally mild winter in the east-central French region. The strange timing of spring meant that the vines flowered late — and not all of them did. By June, the winemakers must have torn all their hair out, not knowing if the grapes would have time to absorb enough sun and turn sweet before harvest. But July and August proved to be really warm — a perfect end to the delayed summer — which was exactly what the grapes needed. While it got cold and rained quite heavily in September, by early October, the grapes were ready for harvest.

Wine experts say the whites did better than the reds that year. Which is probably why I disagree. I tend to disagree on these things, just as a self-entertaining act of rebellion. And there’s something rebellious that translates into the flavor of the 1978 reds. Something defiant, a bit sharp. A taste shaped by brave grapes making it against all odds. So I finish a bottle of it on my own, not apologizing for my existence, either.

Which brings me to how I generally feel about wine. There’s something exhilarating about drinking just a little bit too much red wine together with the object of your affection. It somehow removes the barricades of hurt, distrust, shit, and pain that normally block your emotions from just pouring out in a somewhat natural way.

After exactly two and a half glasses of red — although it rather be full-bodied and not taste of fucking cherry — my emotions become wild little beasts waltzing out of my mouth. They stop asking for permission to stay out late. They just rush at the person next to me with astonishing speed. A mad rush of words straight to their head: boom.

Some people (read: men) freak out. Those are the ones who tend to say things like “I think you’ve had enough.” Excuse me, I’ve most likely had too little given how fucking boring you turned out to be. Others find this stream of consciousness-like state of me fascinating. I can tell they’d take me home in an instant and even make me breakfast the next day.

Now, I want you to picture this. You open the heavy door to your favorite bar — that one bar that makes you feel like Beyoncé accepting a Grammy. You walk in as the barman greets you and take a seat in one of the bar stools. A stool where the feet support seems to have been made exactly for the length of your legs. Imagine that dark, wooden panel with tiny little dim lights illuminating the wood just enough for you to see those wise marks that speak of time passed and drinks spilled. The mirrors on the walls behind your barman make the yellow light bounce back and softly illuminate the face of the person sitting on the stool next to you. Maybe you came there with them. Maybe you didn’t, but you’ll leave with them.

Back to the golden ratio, two and a half glasses are perfect. But give me five and things shift drastically — not necessarily in a bad way. They just make me question everything: from the most unimportant details like the pattern on a piece of toilet paper to the morals of modern society.

I perfectly remember the last time I had five glasses. I somehow started asking myself what the difference between emotion and feeling was. My conclusion was that a feeling was something fleeting, temporary. The apologizing smile you give a stranger in the supermarket as you grab the last package of extra absorbent tampons. The momentarily rage you feel at the taxi driver ignoring your raised hand, or the sudden but very short-lived feeling of wanting to have a kid just because you’ve seen a cute toddler.

Now emotion, that’s something entirely different. It’s a more permanent state of being. A feeling, if you will, that’s so intense or prolonged in time that it becomes an integral part of you. Let’s take the cliché-rich example of love. Some would argue that it’s a feeling, as in feeling in love with someone. I would argue that it’s an emotion that over time makes the object of your affection a natural part of you, like a fifth limb. Without them, you would be a half-assed, permanently sweatpant-wearing version of yourself.

If they were a feeling, they could simply get up from that bar stool and leave, never speak to you again, and ignore all of your messages — and you would hardly be hurt. They would only have been a timebound somewhat-shitty feeling that you can easily shake off. An emotion is different. It leaves one of those glow-in-the-dark tattoos engraved on the insides of your skin, which can always be denied, but never deleted.

But enough about the five-glass limit. There are some other general rules that apply to my wine drinking. Red wine makes me completely unapologetic. It makes me talk, eat, drink, and show affection with no consideration for how it will be received. The receiving end doesn’t matter. What matters is that these feelings and reactions pour out in their purest form. It’s a sacrad state of honesty only potentially matched by an Ayahuasca-drinking 5-year-old. You know, only drunks and children tell the truth.

So, if I talk about wine I obviously don’t just talk about a drink. I talk about the experiences it creates. How it unites, how it creates an almost separate, parallel universe around me and the person I’m drinking it with. Suddenly, I stare into eyes without blinking. I talk too loud and forget I might have cilantro between my teeth. Sometimes, I knock over glasses and don’t even apologize.

The Romans did a lot of uncool things like condemning people to the beasts (aka lions). But I adore how they indulged in wine — apparently, they saw it as a daily necessity and even allowed women to drink it (I know, so woke). They knew both love stories and peace treaties could be short. Life expectancy surely was. So they didn’t give a shit, filled endless copper pitchers with wine and refilled their glasses like there was no tomorrow. What a crowd.

So if you ever ask me if I really should have another glass. Yes, I fucking should. Because not drinking that third, or fourth, or sometimes even fifth glass is like deliberately putting your life on hold, telling it to fuck off and find something better to do than make you live in a moment of pure joy.

So yes, I’ll have a refill. And while you’re at it, fill it up all the way to the top, until it pours over. Over the glass, over the marble stone of the bar, and into the lap of my white, silk summer dress. I wore it to ruin it. I wore it to live in it. And seeing it become more pink with every drop of wine it absorbs gives me the greatest fucking joy.

People always tell each other to live in the moment. Or at least they tattoo things like “carpe diem” in unflattering places during uninspiring holidays. Well, there’s nothing more living-in-the-moment:esque than getting tipsy on red wine in front of the person you adore. That wine glass can be snatched out of your hand at any point. That stranger can become the person you share a bed with every night. That sommelier might just prove to struggle with a severe drug addiction making them stab you in the parking lot, take all your money and let you bleed to death. Your lips still tainted red by the beautiful bottle of wine you just had.

So, in order to really live like a bottle of a good vintage demands, I recommend you get to know yourself under the influence of wine. Each bottle is unique and serves a distinct mood, conveys a different range of feelings, and sets us up for different kinds of nights. Italian wines make me more creative. French, hornier. The Spanish ones make me hungry, and the New World ones disappointed. If you just take the time to look for it, there will be a wine for every occasion, every feeling, every type of sorrow you’d like to drown, and just about any type of emotion you’d like to celebrate.

So raise your glass and drink it as if it was a rare, rebellious glass of 1978 Burgundy.

Note: This story was written under the influence of a bottle of Coste Di Moro, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOP.