Patriotic Wine for Memorial Day

An examination of preference and patriotism

I’m a homer.

I root for California wine, Oregon wine, and, in general, American-made wines. I love wines from around the world. Northern Rhones, Australian stickies, Champagne, and Bordeaux all do it for me. But I root for the home teams.

A lot of this is familiarity. I’ve spent a lot of time in California vineyards, for example. The majority of public relations clients I’ve attended to over 30 years have been American wineries. My political focus is on domestic wine laws. I know hundreds of American winemakers, winery owners, and others who toil in the domestic wine industry.

But it’s also more than just proximity. My homership is also ideological. I am and always have been taken with the libertarian approach to “terroir” that has been adopted by U.S. authorities. While we have federally approved American Viticultural Areas (AVA) and the rules that determine how and under what conditions those Areas can show up on a wine label, there are no European-style dictates as to which grapes, let alone which winemaking techniques, must be used in order for a wine label to carry a given AVA. This Liassez Faire approach, in contrast to Old World regions, is wonderfully American in spirit. They are a reflection of the emphasis on individual rights and freedoms that have defined the American Ideal from our founding.

All this sounds a good deal more like patriotism than it does wine preference. That’s just fine with me. I think Patriotism is an underrated virtue that ought to get more airplay in schools and in hearts and in minds.

Just last Friday, as I drove Henry George to school on the eve of the three-day Memorial Day weekend, the boy asked me why he gets to stay home on Memorial Day. I summoned my inner pedant to quote Abraham Lincoln and answered, “Memorial Day is set aside as a holiday to honor those members of the military who gave their last full measure of devotion to their country.”