My name is Aubrey and I like to drink wine. This is not a confession.
I am wholly obsessed with my cat, Rey. She is the one levitating in the above photo. She does not care for wine.
Umami and Wine is a space for me to talk about the wines I'm drinking: why I love them, and with what or whom I'm drinking them. I love Loire wines most of all, but also those from Beaujolais, Champagne, Alsace, Madiran, Cahors, and the Jura. I love German Rieslings from the Mosel, with their shimmering, delicate austerity. I love sherry. I like small-production wines from dedicated producers who aren't putting fake shit in their bottles.
I lived in Beijing for two years and fell in love with Chinese food, especially tongue-tingling Sichuan and tangy, fresh, and spicy Yunnanese. I moved from China back to Tennessee. I love Chattanooga but there's no dan dan mian or ma la xiang guo to be found here. I drive out to a little Asian market sometimes and buy ingredients for larb mu and papaya salad, or dumplings for the Chinese new year. I stock my pantry with chili oil, spicy chili crisp, sesame oil, Chinkiang vinegar, and rice wine, and try my best to recall the flavors of Beijing. I drink German Riesling or Loire Chenin alongside, because soy sauce and wine that tastes like sweet wet rocks go together.
I've been drinking wine since I was twenty, sipping Barefoot and Two Buck Chuck with my college friends with our dinners of homemade pasta and cream sauce. I didn't come from a wine-drinking family and the artfulness of wine with food appealed to me immensely, even if the wine I was drinking was far from artful. I fell in love with the ceremony of wine during my late college years. During my time in China I drank what French wine I could find, a lot of generic Cava, and even more cheap cocktails. I started listening to a wine podcast, and realized there was a world of beautiful, natural, interesting wines out there that didn't taste identical one to the next. I came home to Tennessee and began ordering wines from a shop in New York City--small production wines from the Loire and Mosel, brimming with personality. I was hooked. I got a job in a wine store that mostly stocked mass-produced California wine, then another job in a store with a wonderful selection of French wines, then a job ordering wine for a new store that looks as beautiful as all the Austrian and French and Spanish wines filling its racks.
Last year I visited the Loire and the Mosel. I drove through the rolling vineyards of Sancerre and the steep terraced slopes along the Rhine and Mosel rivers. I want to go back as soon as possible. I want to go to every wine producing corner of the earth where the good wines are being made.
It's not all Riesling and dumplings. You might occasionally find me describing a California Pinot, or a Mediterranean salad. You might find me on the road to France. You might find pictures of my cat. (You definitely will find pictures of my cat.) You might find stories or opinions that have nothing to do with wine.
I hope you find inspiration to crack open a bottle and drink.
Cheers!