The Cat, the Consultant, and the Luxury of Not Overthinking It

I bought the bottle in the small shop next to my hotel.

Which was faintly ironic, as I was in town selecting rather serious wines for one of my workshops. Wines with structure. Ambition. Opinions about themselves.

And yet, after a day spent discussing ageing curves and market positioning, I found myself standing in front of a label featuring a cartoon cat driving a red car.

Gatto Matto. Nero d’Avola. Sicilia DOC.

Two practical considerations influenced the decision. I didn’t have a corkscrew. And I didn’t particularly feel like sitting alone in a restaurant while someone earnestly described the minerality.

The bottle had a screw cap. That settled it.

When people discover that I’m a wine consultant, the reaction is often charmingly dramatic.

“Oh. How posh.”

As though I swirl everything. As though dinner comes with commentary. As though I cannot possibly open a bottle without evaluating its tannic architecture.

The truth is much less exhausting.

The more time you spend around wine, the less you feel the need to perform it. After hours of disciplined tasting, what one occasionally longs for is not profundity but ease.

Gatto Matto was not profound. It did not whisper about volcanic minerality or deliver a dissertation on tannin architecture. It was warm, generous, faintly sun drenched. It tasted of Sicily in a way that required no footnotes.

Which, that evening, felt entirely right.

There is a quiet freedom in not demonstrating your expertise. In knowing that you could dissect the wine, and choosing not to.

The bottle with the cartoon cat was not a contradiction to my profession.

It was a reminder.

Wine, at its best, is not an exam.

Sometimes it is simply a glass in a hotel room, a long day behind you, and a red car driven by a slightly mad cat.

And that is more than enough.

Cin Cin!