The wine industry takes a lot of heat for being elitist. It's the way we talk about wine, the way we seem to revere it and it's the trappings of the industry that cause this impression.
One of trappings of the wine industry that can't be disputed is that we all tend to surround ourselves with what many would call "high culture". The kind of music that tends to find its way to wine industry events and into wine country in general is what I'm thinking of here.
Take Jazz for example.
This is not a popular form of music in America. Relatively few folks listen to Jazz. And yet, the music seems to ooze out of wine country helping to cement the impression that wine, wineries, the wine industry and wine country is filled with a bunch of elitists.
My thoughts on this relationship?
KEEP IT COMING!!!
If being happy to associate Jazz music with wine and wine country is "elitist" then give me a walking stick and top hat. I'll wear the top hat with pride and keep my pinky extended as I grip my cane of arrogance.
Best of all, it turns out that my very own Sonoma County is turning into a hotbed of Jazz. Consider this:
-A couple weeks ago Chuchita Valdes played a free concert in the Sonoma Plaza sponsored by the Sonoma Jazz Society
-Dave Brubeck is playing a benefit concert for the Sonoma Country Day School
-Sonoma's Ledson Hotel has started a Jazz series that is bringing Taylor Eigsti and Jamie Davis to town.
-The Annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival has in the past two years put McCoy Tyner, Delfeayo Marsalis, Dave Holland and Roy Hargrove within my reach.
Until some great Jazz Diva comes along who chooses to sing about her tits and ass, to sing half naked and to makes videos that feature ripped gents and scantily clad female associates, Jazz is going to stay well off the mainstream radar and be perceived as elitist.
But as long as there is a wine industry and a wine loving set that feel there is an affinity between the art of wine making and high art, I'll be sitting pretty here in Sonoma.
