The Epiphany

"We always remember it: an unusual moment; the temperature of the room
was just right; one was somehow more receptive, open to the unexpected;
 a moment when everything in the rush of experience is briefly stilled.
You taste and at that moment you know the difference between this
experience of drinking and all those that you have had before.  The senses
are dazzled. You are stunned by the intoxicating power of the experience;
the pleasure is exhilarating and hypnotic.  The velvet feel of the wine
in your mouth, the lingering flavours and aromas when you swallow.
It is an intensely hedonistic moment, an encounter with a fine and elegant
thing. There is a desire to be still and to focus on what is happening.
There is the swoon of something great entering your system.  The body has
no struggle in accepting this harmonious liquid-it feels good for us, like a
blood transfusion with several vital elements in it.  You delight in
your experience, and in that of those with who, you share the bottle.
The moment is fleeting, ephemeral and transitory, yet utterly memorable.
And you know, at that moment, that you want more opportunities like this,
not to drink this very wine again,  because this is an unrepeatable experience.
You want more opportunities to drink other wines as great as this because
now you know great wines exist and that you are capable of responding
to them. At that moment you learn something about wine and something
about you. You are astonished that wine can reach such great heights,
provide such a complex and yet harmonious experience, and in understanding
that wine can do this, you want to know more."
-Barry C. Smith- Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine