Arrival untold: Solo

Wine tours are not typically solo ventures. People usually go with their friends or more often their partners. Visiting the rolling hills of wine country, the stepped land created for each row of vines and then tasting the wine where the owner has a thick accent, explaining to you the age, the notes, the essence of each wine. This could decidedly be an experience one might want to share with others. For the couples, it’s romantic. For the friends, it’s a picturesque way to get drunk.

Yet still, to my surprise, I found myself surrounded by couples as the only single person on a wine tour discovering the Ports of Portugal. I was also the only person under 30 and the only black person.

So, I don’t scare anyone away from the thought of doing a wine tour in Portugal for context I was there during off season, late November. I’ve heard the Portuguese summers as a whole are packed.

Now yes, for some reason I was a little surprised to find myself the only one of one. I had my own reasons for going. Wine tours are an easy day trip and great way to trade the cityscape of tall buildings, loud noises and narrow alleyways for the smaller homesteads, the peace and quiet and the vastness of the land. I suppose I also go for the wine as well. I’ve drank many a bottle of wine, but for my own enjoyment. I couldn’t tell you the region of the wine, the types of grapes that were used, how one red differs from another red. To be honest I barely remember the wines I enjoyed. Not because I was too inebriated to remember. I enjoy wine for the enjoyment of it. I’m not completely incompetent, I can swirl, sniff and gurgle with the rest of them. Talk about the long legs along the glass and oh, am I getting a hint of deep raisin flavor thats burgeoning on nutty, and wow this one is lighter coating my palate with hints of acidity. Just don’t ask me which wine goes in which glass shape.

Being solo or the other in the group afforded me lots of conversations. The typical we’re strangers meeting in foreign land questions. Where are you from, Why are your here, How long are you here for? Despite these questions being monotonous and boring, I welcomed, entertained, and participated in this shallow getting to know you ritual. I mean why not. There was a couple from northern California who owned a winery, a couple from New Orleans who owned a restaurant and another couple there on their honeymoon, because there always must be one.

Being solo also allowed me time to get away. The voices of the group fade as I decided to explore the wine cellars deeper immersing myself amongst the the large barrels. My height feeling slightly dwarfed with the barrels piled high. Maybe I’ll finish off my flight of wine a little too fast, trading the homely interior and brief conversations for the sweeping landscape. The buzz hitting me as I take my camera out attempting to capture the scenery just so.

I had no one there saying “hey, lets stick with the group” or “hey, don’t drink that wine too fast”. Might the others have judged me, maybe, but I don’t know those people, and will never see these people again. Even if I might run in to them, enough time has passed where their faces have faded from my memory.

My ego would like to think that I would be hard to forget even as a distant memory. These couples sitting around, finally deciding to pop open the wine they bought from Portugal. “Remember that tall black girl who came alone to the wine tour, with the big hair?” One of them would say as they smell the sweet Port in the glass, the smell triggering their memories. “Yeah, she was just running around doing her own thing.” The other would reply, the memories also flooding back to them as the wine floods their palate.

See more from the Pilot Issue of Arrival Mag below:

Arrival: Untold (Physical)

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