By Al Drinkle

“It’s all mirage illusion, like cinnabar-and-azure paintings, this

human world. We wander here for a time, then vanish into dust.

Things aren’t other than they are. That’s all anyone can know.

Don’t ask if this thing I am today is the thing I was long ago.”

-Wang An-Shih

Following an unenthusiastic search for a job that would accommodate my university schedule, I was hired to work at a liquor store called Sally's Spirits¹ in September of 2003. Owned and operated by a somewhat eccentric family, the shop was slightly less sterile in ambience than one might expect and had a selection that reflected the affluent neighborhood in which it was located. We certainly blasted through innumerable cases of the cheapest possible distillates, but pricey wine, upscale spirits, and imported beer² were on offer as well.

I was the new guy in a milieu of dispassionate employees who generally saw no reason to extend more than the most basic courtesies to recent hires. Furthermore, beyond being a disciple of the sorrow-banishing effects of alcohol, I had no particular interest and certainly no expertise in regard to the products. In fact, it was an epiphany to learn that words like “Chardonnay” and “Cabernet Sauvignon” on a wine label denoted the grape varieties used to make those wines. I assumed that those already in possession of such knowledge, not to mention the insight as to what impact particular grapes might have upon the wine in question, were de facto wine experts.

Among my new co-workers there was one individual—the second newest guy, as it happened—who proved to be exceedingly friendly. This young man's name was Jesse Willis, and though he was not quite 20 years old when I met him, he had already amassed fascinating credentials. Though I never saw him hypnotise anybody (at least not in the classical sense), Jesse had completed a course in clinical hypnosis and also ran a side hustle with his father, an ex-police officer. The two of them hosted workshops wherein they trained cops in self-defense! I made a hasty mental note not to start a fight with this kid.

Jesse had just lost an extraordinary amount of weight by adhering to an insane fitness regime and a strictly regimented diet. As an example of the former, Jesse's family owned a couple of beer kegs that they had filled with sand and would toss them around in their backyard as a perverse form of exercise. Regarding diet, a couple days after making his acquaintance, I witnessed Jesse eating a lunch that appeared to be a gigantic tupperware container filled with ground beef. After a puzzled inquiry I was told that it was actually chili, and that it denoted his only significant meal of the day. Sure enough, upon closer examination I spotted a lonely, glistening kidney bean that might have made up 0.01% of the content. Getting to know Jesse better, it became clear that he’s a true gourmand and that his weight loss was the result of superhuman discipline.

It took very little time to learn that Jesse was exceedingly funny. Even back then his dialogue was peppered with witty bits of sarcasm, and anybody who's met him knows that he loves to make people laugh. One memorable motif of this time involved the fact that the effects of his incredible weight loss were not consistent across all of his body parts. In addition to the frequent showcasing of his inordinately elastic skin, Jesse was quick to point out that his nipples and their aureolae hadn't shrunk in proportion with the rest of his chest. He loved to have them on display in any situation where there was even the slightest chance that they might garner a laugh—the less appropriate, the better. Often at parties, I'd glance across the room to find a mischievous smirk upon his face and a couple of shirt buttons popped to liberate a distended nipple.

Jesse and I quickly became drinking buddies, and more crucially, we underwent parallel revelations regarding wine. We recognised that although it isn't the most economic or efficient path to inebriation, wine is certainly the most interesting way to get annihilated³. With its seemingly endless variants of aroma and flavour and the incalculable factors that influence these things, wine became an endlessly exciting discipline for us to obsess over. Though neither of us have ever stopped obsessing, we've both become eminently more balanced over the years. In retrospect, I can't imagine how annoying we must have been to our family and friends at the time as we effortlessly maneuvered any conversation towards wine in a matter of seconds.

It's clear to me now how lucky I was to have had someone with whom I could begin my immersion into this new passion. The world of wine is exciting, but it’s encumbered by a well-earned reputation for being intimidating, stuffy, elitist, and exclusive. It could have been a lonely pursuit—and one that I might not have followed to the point of a career—if it wasn't for Jesse. It's fortunate that we could mutually fan the fires of our interest and do so while laughing our asses off.

After achieving a modicum of wine knowledge and using it to become the most irritating people in Calgary, Jesse and I began organising wine tasting evenings with our co-workers—little symposiums, if you will. We'd all throw money down on a wide range of bottles to explore, sometimes with an attempt at complimentary cheeses and other times with pizza or sushi, and we'd spend an evening sharing thoughts and elementary attempts at tasting notes. This might all sound very mature and civilised, but inevitably these sessions would turn into complete mayhem.

On one occasion at a co-worker's apartment, after drinking all the wine that was assembled for the evening Jesse and I stumbled down the block to the nearest liquor store for more supplies. On our way back we encountered a mangled shopping cart which we proceeded to carry up multiple flights of stairs to the apartment. After placing our host inside the cart, we raced him around the narrow hallways as all parties shrieked with laughter. I don't know how our previous revels hadn't woken up our host's boyfriend, but this sure did, and his combination of disbelief and rage precipitated the end of the “wine tasting”.

Another time, after a similarly excessive evening at my own apartment, I awoke in my living room with a head that weighed ten tons. After immediately vomiting in the kitchen sink (the toilet was three or four steps further away and I wouldn't have made it), I could only form blurry memories of the end of the festivities. Maybe I was on the couch because I had generously given up my bed to an unexpected house guest—perhaps a lady for whom I was secretly harbouring romantic feelings? Nope… I tiptoed around the corner to my bedroom, but instead of discovering a slumbering inamorata I saw that someone had barfed in my bed during the night. Sadly there was nobody else around to blame. When I spoke to Jesse later he was nursing a similarly punishing hangover, with the added embarrassment that his parents had awoken to see him hurling in their yard upon arriving home at some godforsaken hour.

It was clear to Jesse and I that our interest in wine was far outstripping that of our peers. We weren't sated by awaiting the occasional large-scale revelries so several times per week he would show up at my apartment on Gladstone Road to open a couple of bottles and discuss them in comprehensive detail. On such evenings we worked our way through seasons of Trailer Park Boys, the British version of The Office, and Ali G as we acquainted ourselves with new regions and cultivars. Pretty soon, and in addition to perpetual winespeak, the scope of our language was reduced to quotes from these televised gems—a quirk that's persisted to this day.

Inevitably, at some point during these evenings we'd have to walk over to Safeway so that Jesse could satisfy his intoxicated cravings with a McCain's Deep’n Delicious cake or a tub of ice cream. Following this, not being terrifically skilled at staying awake after several drinks, Jesse would begin snoring amidst the cake shrapnel or melted ice cream on my couch and I'd have to call his girlfriend of the time (from my landline!), suggesting that she might want to come by and retrieve the slumbering muscleman.

Occasionally we would conduct these buzzed study sessions at the home of Jesse's parents, both of whom were and still are wonderful and supportive people. This is also where I first met Jesse's lanky younger brother who invariably had a crew of scruffy teenage miscreants in tow. Sometimes they'd have a shitty old jalopy torn apart and propped up with bricks on the driveway, or other times they'd be engaged in chaotic sporting matches in the yard, but whatever their activities they were always overcast by thick clouds of ganja smoke. Though I don't recall him even being employed at the time, Jesse's brother would consistently share a wild new career idea when I saw him, each one more fantastic and ridiculous than the last. But it pays to have dreams—Jesse's kid brother is Cody Willis who's the founder, owner and operator of Native Tongues, Calcutta Cricket Club and Fonda Fora restaurants.

Jesse was always better than me at anticipating wine trends, which took him further afield than the liquor store that employed us. One afternoon he showed up at my place with a bottle from Richmond Hill Wines that promised to be bigger, denser and darker than anything that we had ever tasted… it also cost far more than we were used to spending! The wine in question was Ben Glaetzer's “Amon Ra” Shiraz, and it was a veritable steamroller. A wine version of Motörhead’s “everything louder than everything else” mantra, this was an unchallenged vinous virtue in the mid-2000s—and not just for fledgling wine lovers in their early twenties. This formative experience undoubtedly catalysed a series of tastings that Jesse would later lead, aptly marketed as “Palate Destruction”.

Another pivotal session followed a visit of my own to Richmond Hill. When engaged by one of their employees, I voiced my suspicion that Pinot Noir didn't live up to its lofty reputation, citing that all of my exposure to the lauded grape thus far had yielded characterless, anemic wines. The young man suggested to me that unlike many other cultivars, Pinot Noir wasn't conducive to producing exciting wines for paltry budgets. He convinced me to spend a whopping $27 on a Burgundy to see if my respect for Pinot could be salvaged. There was a new season of Trailer Park Boys airing that evening and since I didn't get cable television at my apartment, Jesse and I decided to take an unreasonable number of bottles to the home of my parents who happened to be out of town at the time. After a couple of warmup glasses, we took our first sips of the Burgundy which is still vivid in my mind. I had never tasted a wine that was so enchantingly silky while also being quite rich; nor one that was so strikingly fruity, but amidst an evocative backdrop of savoury, terrestrial flavours. It was Domaine Arlaud's 2003 Bourgogne “Roncevie”, and it changed my life. Only home ownership has exceeded my Burgundy “habit” as the most expensive pursuit of my last couple of decades.

By this time I had graduated from university but still had no idea what I wanted to do. It was somewhat disheartening that the part-time job that was meant to help fund my degree had become my full time job once that degree had been completed. Jesse had gone on to other things, but we kept in close contact by enrolling in wine courses through the International Sommelier Guild. Shortly thereafter I landed a job with a national wine distributor, thus beginning my brief tenure wholesaling wine.

One evening while working a wine dinner at a now-defunct Thai restaurant, I introduced a dish with what I'm sure was an incoherent and mostly fabricated discussion of the wine pairing—specifically Dr. L Riesling. In spite of this, the owners of a new importing agency who were attending the dinner were inexplicably impressed enough with my presentation to ask if I might consider leaving my job and working for them instead. I hadn't yet been in my role long enough for dienchantment to set in, so I graciously declined their offer but suggested that I could introduce them to a friend of mine who might be looking for such a position…

All of a sudden, Jesse and I were both representatives for wine agencies. Responsible for our own schedules, we entered a surreal period of ineffectually dressing in formal wear, frequent day-drinking, and the perpetuating of bacchanalian ragers with “sample” wine. As we pursued our formal wine education to the point of our Sommelier Diplomas, we were also constantly meeting up to blind taste each other on whatever bottles we had procured or opened for customers. As our employers had furnished each of us with mobile phones, there was literally no occasion that would preclude a quick meet-up to hone our skills as tasters. Breakfasts with girlfriends, formal family dinners, trade seminars, and back alley hangouts during punk shows all became backdrops for us to prepare for the most intimidating part of our forthcoming exams.

Also during this time (which must have been the spring of 2007), Jesse and I took a trip to Napa and Sonoma Valleys to further fuel our vinous curiosity. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing, and after surviving naive and drunken escapades in San Francisco's Tenderloin, we proceeded to visit a veritable who's who of California's “bigger is better” wineries. Although I was well aware of it prior to this trip, driving from visit to visit starkly reinforced Jesse's outrageous caffeine addiction at the time. I recall driving through the valleys and witnessing a foreboding shift in Jesse's pallour and demeanour, following which he would begin to bonk into sleep in the passenger seat mid-sentence during his own stories. Getting a couple espresso shots into him at such times was crucial, even if the detour would make us late for our next appointment.

Neither of us lasted long as wine reps, and Jesse called it quits a couple of months before I did. He went into wine retail, first working at The Wine Cottage before joining the team at Bin 905—where he worked alongside such characters as Bryan “Honey Badger” Childs, Brad “The Guy” Royale, and his future business partner Jeff Jamieson. In the meantime, I was making daily visits to Metrovino where Richard Harvey and his team would set me up with a series of blind tastings for my studies. One day in the summer of 2008, I asked Richard if there might be a place in the shop for a disgruntled young wine rep. He responded that the timing was good, and I began working at Metrovino a couple of weeks later.

That autumn, the graduates of the International Sommelier Guild's diploma program were announced. Of the 24 Albertan candidates, only Jesse, myself, and one other student passed the exams and our ridiculously tiny graduation ceremony was moderated by the senior Western Canadian ambassador of the ISG—my new boss, Richard Harvey. Based on the modesty and humility that Jesse has shown throughout his career, I assume that Richard's congratulatory words resonated as much with him as they did with me. “You guys don't know shit,” Richard told us over glasses of Chiquet's 2002 Special Club Champagne. “This isn't the culmination of your education, it's the beginning of your perpetual journey as students of wine. As long as you never forget that, there's a bright future ahead of you in this industry".

While working at different wine shops for a couple of years, Jesse and I met up at Pizza Bob's every Monday for lunch. We'd each bring a bottle, discuss new wine discoveries, and trade industry gossip while hammering slices. It was the perfect environment to enjoy wine for its innocent purity and free of the formality that continued to be endemic in the industry. By this point, Jesse had begun to teach for the ISG on the side, and bit by bit he began to share his burgeoning career plan—namely, the opening of his own wine shop.

The road to opening Vine Arts was a long and often tedious process, and when a position opened up at Metrovino I convinced Jesse to come work for Richard under the agreement that his tenure would last until he needed to devote his full attention to his own shop. He brought Bryan Childs over with him, and this was to be a particularly hilarious period at Metrovino; one filled with constant antics, practical jokes, post-work hangouts, and frequent hangovers. It got even more outrageous when Cody Willis, who was developing a love for wine and food, briefly joined the team.

Jesse was still working at Metrovino when I took some time off to get married in 2011. It was easy and natural for me to choose my brother as my best man, and when my bride-to-be decided that she needed two maids of honour for reasons of diplomacy, I selected our beloved dog for my groomslady. Unfortunately this didn't help with the equilibrium of seating arrangements, and therefore Jesse was invited to sit at our table—in addition to being a great friend, he'd also be the most appreciative of the assortment of incredible wines that we'd be guzzling. He arrived with a bottle of 1969 Huet Vouvray Pétillant that I was proud to be buzzed on while making my vows, and we later drained magnums of 2008 Bonneau du Martray Corton-Charlemagne and 1988 Huet Clos du Bourg Vouvray Moelleux along with all sorts of other easily-procured delights that have since become unobtainable for reasons of price or scarcity.

In March of 2012, Jesse and Jeff opened the doors to the first Vine Arts. In many ways, this marks the beginning of Jesse's story, but beyond this point it's not my story to tell. Along with Jeff, he's opened two more Vine Arts locations, along with Pr%f Cocktail Bar, and Donna Mac restaurant (which has sadly closed its doors), while pursuing many other ventures. More importantly, Jesse has become a husband and a father of two, and these are jobs that he was truly born for.

Jesse has significantly improved the wine and spirits scene in Calgary, injecting it with his infectious enthusiasm, boundless creativity, and unintimidating charisma. Crucially, he's done it on his own terms through his small, independent businesses—the likes of which are an endangered species. I'm grateful to have known Jesse for more than two decades now; to have learned so much with him and from him; and to have laughed riotously in his company on innumerable occasions which are still accumulating.

As our rage days recede further into our rearview and we become increasingly grey and grizzled veterans of the wine scene, I sincerely hope that there are curious young friends in an apartment somewhere in town, drunk on wine and having tandem epiphanies as to how this ancient beverage might just be their ticket to rise above the bleak disillusionment of existence. Lives are literally saved this way, and it helps to have an accomplice.

By Al Drinkle

Eva Hudson