In Vino Veritas (The fine Art of Winespeak)

Somewhere in my early twenties, between post-college hangover and adult responsibility, I worked for a time in a posh Dublin Wine Emporium. (That?s what they call an off-license in Blackrock.) Our clientele was a well-heeled and diverse cross section of Dublin suburban wildlife, divided equally along two very distinct lines: those who simply liked to have a drink, and those who simply needed to have a drink. Of the latter species, we had all varieties: The balding middle-management desk jockey who stops off on his way to work "to pick something up for the evening." Or the teacher turned novelist with a shocking case of writer?s block; the florid priest with great devotion to the Holy Spirit (Jameson); the faded English Popstar without a hit since 1985, now living in tax exile and alcoholic oblivion. And of course, the fabulously wealthy widow who in her own domestic and socially acceptable way, is also a raging alcoholic.