Alcohol and the Idea of Wine

A brief rumination inspired by the Come Over October movement.

I was very fortunate to be appointed to an endowed university chair about 20 years ago, which afforded me great freedom in what I could teach, so long as the classes contributed to the college education goals. My first new class was called “The Idea of Wine” and it quickly became the school’s most popular course, with a waiting list longer than the class list itself, even though the students knew it wasn’t a wine-tasting course and c...