In this entry to our 2024 wine writing competition, actor and wine retailer Cary Donaldson writes about a moment shortly before his wedding that sparked his love for wine. See the guide to our competition for the rest of this year's published entries.
Cary Donaldson writes Cary Donaldson (WSET 3) is an actor, musician, and wine retail employee in New York City. He lives with his wife, a stage manager, and their chihuahua, Monster. His current favorite wine rabbit hole: native Italian grapes.
…Monsieur Does Not Know Wine?
On New Year’s Eve of 2019 my wife and I, two Americans with precisely zero French family members and an equivalent amount of wine knowledge, were married in a small ceremony in Brittany, France.
As two freelance theater artists paying rent in New York City, we hadn’t been able to afford a large wedding. So, inspired by a friend, we settled on the idea of a “nuclear family and best friends-only Destination Wedding.” It was a great idea; I highly recommend it.
But where to go? A Tuscan villa? An island resort? A former monastery in Spain? All too expensive.
What about a chateau in France? Foolish to even Google it, right? Well, as luck would have it…not quite. If you’re willing to extend your search away from wine country, values start to appear. Brittany, too cold for wine, had the perfect place.
A flurry of emails ensued, followed by a visit to see it in person. “This chateau isn’t very big,” our host said. “It was built for the second son of the family.”
His loss, our gain! We put down our deposit and got to work planning. Passports were renewed, formalwear was acquired, carbohydrates were shunned.
A few nights before the wedding, my fiancée, soon-to-be in laws, and a few assorted nieces and nephews had dinner at a restaurant in the small town of La Gacilly. Having been informed ahead of time that we were a wedding party, our server congratulated us in perfect English, welcomed us to his part of France, and promptly checked in with the happy couple.
“First things first” he began, “what wine would you like for the table?”
Uh-oh.
My wife is sober, so the responsibility fell to me. The pressure was on. I shot a furtive glance at my future family; everyone watched expectantly.
I don’t consider myself particularly well-traveled, but I had enough experience after spending an undergraduate semester in Spain to know what to say in this type of situation. I cleared my throat.
“You know what? We’ll have whatever wine you recommend.”
Our new friend was confused. He furrowed his brow.
Uh-oh again.
“Well…umm…would you like a medium-bodied wine, a full-bodied wine…?”
“I hate to say it” I replied, “but…I don’t know what that means.”
Silence.
He paused for comedic effect, then sighed wearily and took off his glasses.
“Monsieur does not know wine?”
We all laughed. It was hilarious.
It’s a cliche, perhaps, but it’s hardly uncommon knowledge that French servers are very good at their jobs. This man had been at the table for less than a minute and already we were putty in his hands.
He took our orders and returned a few minutes later with a bottle of (full-bodied) wine, as well as what appeared to be a glass of red for my 11-year-old niece.
“She is brave, she ordered escargot, she gets something too.”
Just as her mother started to protest, he winked and reassured her, “It’s ok, it’s not wine…but what is it? I won’t leave until you guess.”
He stayed with us as she mustered a few attempts. Cranberry juice? No. Pomegranate juice? No. Stymied, she recruited a few of us to help. After watching us all flounder another few seconds, he mercifully let us off the hook: hibiscus juice. “We make it ourselves!” he said proudly.
The rest of the dinner followed suit: a few more guessing games, a few more jokes, and, of course, a lot of delicious food.
At the end of the meal as we stood to put on our coats, he pulled me aside and said “you know I was just joking with you earlier, yes?”
“Oh of course, no worries,” I said, “it was really funny.”
He continued.
“It’s just…you’re not allowed to come here and get married, then go back to the States and tell everyone you got married in France, but not know anything about wine.”
“I understand,” I said.
We were married two days later, honeymooned briefly in Paris, then headed back home to begin our next gigs. 2020! The future seemed bright.
Four months and one pandemic later, I found myself sitting at home, unemployed, with the server’s charge still echoing in my ears. I decided to set to work.
Random internet searches led first to Wine Folly, then The World Atlas of Wine. The occasional tipsy actor hangout became a full-on, high-level, monthly tasting group discovered through Reddit (we just had our 28th consecutive meeting!). I signed up for WSET, passed Level 3 with distinction, and promptly got a job in my neighborhood wine shop.
Nowadays, when I ride the subway home after a tasting, my head spins, not from alcohol (ok, maybe partially), but mostly from ideas. Chemistry, history, language, cooking, ecology, you name it. Learning about wine, it turns out, means learning about seemingly everything.
It also trains a floodlight on my blind spots and biases. They make good wine in South Africa? Yes! Australia? Of course they do! A $17 bottle of wine can be good? Guess what, genius, that’s Pieropan Soave Classico; it’s not just good, it’s joy in liquid form.
Learning about wine makes me more curious and more open-minded. It makes me less likely to pat myself on the back for something I think I know, and more likely to assume I have something to learn. It makes me a better listener.
Wine is a window into yourself, and a launchpad that catapults you anywhere in the world you want to go.
I wish I could thank our server for the gift his good-natured nudge was and always will be. It wasn’t just a pathway to a new mode of employment, or a new, ever-expanding group of friends. It improved my way of moving through life.
I hope he’d be pleased, and maybe even proud; monsieur knows a little bit more about wine.
The photo, 'My niece receives her hibiscus juice', is by Sarah Howard.