In the tranquil setting of a spring garden, where the fragrance of blossoms fills the air, a young couple finds themselves immersed in a moment of courtly love. The woman, poised against the sturdy trunk of a flowering tree. Her gaze, momentarily diverted from the pages of a slender manuscript, meets that of her suitor, who kneels before her with a gesture of reverence. The manuscript is filled with verses of love poetry. He offers her a refreshing cup of wine to share, a romantic courtship begins.

The featured wines this week include Zinfandels and Primitivos; a great example of New-World versus Old-World wine. You might be saying, “Wait. Are not they the same grape?” They were once considered the same grape, or perhaps siblings, and then some further testing and research suggested they may be different.

A Gallup survey taken back in July of 2021 revealed the average person’s alcoholic beverage preference in the US, as it is broken down by subgroups. Turns out, at a bar, men will choose beer (54 percent) over liquor (28 percent) or wine (15 percent). Women will choose wine (49 percent) over liquor (26 percent) or beer (23 percent). It further breaks it down in age groups. The 21- to 34-year-olds will choose beer, liquor, and then wine. The 35- to 54-year-olds will prefer beer, wine, and then liquor. But the 55 and older crowd will greatly choose wine first, beer, and then liquor. There are suggestions that education and household income may have contributing factors.

It is pretty typical to say that what grows together tends to be together. The phrase seems not to be confined to just food, but it also seems to extend to food-and-wine pairings. One step further, in the world of making wine, what grows together tends to get blended together. Old World traditions have been formulated to produce the same style of wine with very little interpretation year-to-year, other than how the microclimate had differed.