I love to tell people that the way wine won my heart was by bringing into focus other topics that I had never been interested in before. World history, geography, agriculture, science. My curiosity about wine has me scarfing these down.
In this way, wine has truly changed my life by changing my mind.
This past week, thanks to the magical connective powers of Maryam Ahmed of Maryam + Company and Kia (yes, the car company!) it led me to the world of electric vehicles.
They put me and five other writers behind the wheel of their electric vehicles and guided us around Walla Walla, a wine region I’ve always wanted to visit. Walla Walla is in the southeastern part of Washington and extends into Oregon.
I’d never driven an electric vehicle, and after this week I would definitely consider buying one after I run my little Hyundai into the ground (may she persevere). But you don’t come to me for cars, you come to me for wine…right?
As a wine person who can only identify cars by their color, I was a little intimidated at first. That is, until I saw the car journalist’s face light up when our host walked us out to the lineup of six EVs we would be playing with for the next day. I know that face—they got to see it on mine every time we parked at a local vineyard.
Yes, car people are just like wine people. Total nerds, cultured, always traveling to places that require more than one plane and an hour car ride. In love with how their passion intersects with other cultural elements.
And electric car people? Downright hopeful.
One of my fellow wine writers, Jamie Knee (follow her here), and our driver who was clearly invested in his home, Ryan, (he puts together customized tours in the area) joked that wine writers are all doom and gloom.
There are no climate deniers found in the wine trade, Jamie remarked. She’s right. Winemakers and writers alike devote our lives to observing the conditions in which wine grapes grow, aka climate. Even if you’ve never been to a vineyard, you can see, smell, and taste climate change in a glass of wine. Our livers literally process it.
During car rides, dinners, and tastings with community members and car-nerd-companions, there was hope for our capacity to be sustainable as a society. I appreciate that.
At the end of our two-day excursion, we found ourselves in front of the fireplace at the Eritage Resort, sipping from bottles that Maryam pulled from her bag in the style of a clown with a handkerchief. I found myself in conversation with one of the hosts from Kia, an inquisitive man a generation ahead of me.
Our wine-fueled conversation steered us towards the subject of musicals (as it does). He asked if I’d been in any, and I said yes. My first role in a musical was in the sixth grade—Annie. I was the girl who sang, NYC….just got here this morninnnnnnng, I told him.
He perked up and said, I was pointing man number six IN THAT SCENE! What are the odds? Excitedly, we moved into a conversation about tap dance, how much we both love it, and how complicated it can be to make the feet and the mind communicate.
This was my favorite moment of the trip: me, a 34-year-old wine writer with a hippy sensibility and fatigue from years of condescending conversations with men, sitting by a fire with a male employee of a leading automobile manufacturer, enthusiastically talk-shouting about Annie. It was one of those cosmic moments that can feel like it was sent to deliver a message specifically for you.
The message wasn’t about cars, it wasn’t about wine. It was about people. That’s what wine does. I guess that’s what cars do, too.
ps. My favorite car was the EV Niro. It was in this car that I began to understand, rather than be annoyed by, regenerative braking. And luckily for me, it’s also the least expensive. Maybe one day.
