by Theis Bergstrom, Admin, Data and Personnel Manager
Since the dawn of time, the struggle to find potable liquids has driven the progress of human society. Why did we first come down out of the trees? Because we were thirsty.
Why did we harness fire? to find something to drink at night.
Why did we invent soup? so we could drink WHILE WE EAT.
What separated us from the Neanderthals? They didn’t experience thirst.*
Along that journey we collectively realized that water can be untrustworthy. We looked around, saw some grapes, and decided it would be better to drink those if possible. Just look at them. They’re little tiny waterskins. The problem is the shelf life of unrefrigerated juice isn’t terribly long. (This is also why we invented the icebox, see? It’s all about thirst!) So our ancestors developed a trick to make the juice last a bit longer. They did this by wielding the mysterious power of yeast. Suddenly the juice could be stored for a really long time without going bad.
As with many human undertakings, we quickly began obsessing with the minutiae of this project: grape selection, soil composition, aging time, materials for aging in; and in the process began making this fermented fruit drink into something so much more than that. Fast forward a couple thousand years and you have the inevitable creation of the Plainfield Co-op. I realize it doesn’t explicitly say anything about drinkable liquids in our mission statement, but I think we all see the subtext: we continue the noble lineage of slaking thirst that started with those early tree-dwellers.
I like to think that those arboreal antecedents would be impressed with the progress we (at the Co-op) have made to offer an interesting and carefully curated selection of wines. While we might not have the room to cover every terroir and every variety—sorry, no Croatian Ribolla Giallas at the moment—we are constantly expanding our selection. Whether you’re pairing with a caprese salad of heirloom tomatoes and handwrapped mozzarella, or with wildebeest bone marrow freshly scavenged from the savannah, there’s almost certainly something here for you. (There’s some really nice Vermentinos for the first, and I can think of two super fun Cabernet Sauvignons for the later).
In upcoming newsletters I might get more specific with the wine selections. I might try actively convincing you to try some really fun skin-contact wines, or convert you to the absolutely underappreciated world of dry Rieslings. Maybe we’ll talk about historic wine regions. I don’t know! I might even go on a fun little tangent, and in keeping with the theme of things to drink that are delicious, talk about coffee cultivars and processing. Or maybe even explain why coffee prices are about to go up (the short version is weather, the long version is LONG).
*I am not a historian, archaeologist, or anthropologist; some claims in this piece have not been peer reviewed or fact checked.
Theis Bergstrom
Theis used to live in Plainfield and work at the Co-op. Then he didn’t for a while. Now he does one of those two things. Mostly his time at work involves futzing with numbers and performing what can generally be called “admin.” That all happens upstairs. Sometimes he’s downstairs interacting with wine and cheese, which he coincidentally also enjoys doing recreationally. His other hobbies involve drinking coffee and writing autobiographical bios in the third person.
