Last week, I thought my World Cup adventure had come to an end.
You all read about the airline fiasco. I made my peace with missing Messi in Miami, embraced my unexpected Portland staycation, and figured that was the end of the story.
Then, Sunday morning—right after that newsletter landed in your inbox—I was given a ticket to Monday’s USA vs. Belgium match in Seattle.
Cue one of the most thrilling twenty-four hours I’ve had in a very long time.
I drove to Seattle Sunday night, to find a city that was utterly electrified. I’ve experienced European cities rallying around sports before, but have never seen an American city united quite like this.
Monday morning, literally the entire Seattle population was wearing jerseys or Team USA ensembles. If they weren’t headed to the match itself, they were headed to a watch party. No one was going to work, and it felt like a national holiday. I honestly don’t remember the last time I felt that patriotic. For one day, it didn’t matter who you voted for or what your politics were. Nobody was blue or red. Everyone was simply red, white, and blue.
To commemorate the occasion, I’d brought a bottle of 2015 Yves Ruffin Blanc de Blancs. I figured, whether we won or lost, Champagne belonged at a moment like this.
So I woke up, put on my child’s-size-large Team USA jersey (it was literally all Nike had left, and I made it work), popped the Champagne, split it into two empty plastic hotel water bottles, and we sipped some bougie bubbles while walking to the stadium.
And let me tell you... Champagne has never tasted so damn good.
No, the game didn’t end the way any of us wanted. I don’t particularly care to relive that part. But being in that crowd—surrounded by thousands of people all pulling in the same direction—was still, and always will be, one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
And what is Champagne even for if not to mark moments like that? It didn’t need crystal flutes or a white tablecloth. It just needed a reason to celebrate.
A few days later, I found myself in another wonderfully absurd situation.
Arden was invited to cook at Providence Park’s 100th Anniversary celebration, where the theme was the Roaring Twenties with a “highbrow meets lowbrow” menu. Everyone was dressed in glamorous flapper dresses and suspenders and there were incredible Oregon wines everywhere…Illahe, Ambar Estate, C.J. McCollum’s new project McCollum Family Vineyard, Big Table Farm. It was an amazing lineup.
Meanwhile, everyone was drinking those beautiful wines out of plastic cups while eating hot dogs, pizza, waffles, and cake cones, all while standing on the soccer pitch with a live goose wandering around. (Don’t ask. Her name was Stella, and I’m completely in love.)
It struck me that I’d somehow had two of my favorite wine moments of the entire year in the span of four days.
Neither happened in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Neither involved perfect stemware. Neither looked anything like the picture we tend to paint when we talk about “great wine.” And yet they were as special as it gets.
I think we sometimes assume that if we’re lucky enough to open a really special bottle, then we somehow have to rise to meet its grandeur. We save it for the perfect dinner, the perfect glassware, the perfect occasion.
But maybe it’s actually the other way around.
Maybe the best bottles aren’t asking us to become fancier versions of ourselves… they’re simply asking to come along for the ride.
Sometimes that ride looks like a walk to a World Cup match in a disposable water bottle. Sometimes it looks like a plastic coupe paired with a hot dog while a live goose wanders across a soccer pitch.
Sometimes the juxtaposition of a fancy wine and an unexpected scenario makes the moment all the more memorable.
That’s the kind of wine culture I want to be part of: one where extraordinary bottles arrive in ordinary settings to create extraordinary moments.
Which brings me to one last invitation…
If you’ve been thinking about joining us for Dose on July 25th, I hope you will. The whole idea behind the evening is rooted in exactly this philosophy. Yes, there will be spectacular sparkling wines—special cuvées, back vintages, and bottles you rarely get to taste—but the point isn’t to create another formal wine event. The point is simply to throw a really great party.
We’ll open some crazy bottles, laugh with old friends and new ones, dance a little, celebrate summer, and hopefully create the kind of wine memories that have nothing to do with crystal stemware and everything to do with the people you’re sharing the bottle with.
Hope to see you there!
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