The Wolf of Wall Street

I recently saw The Wolf of Wall Street, the new film to hit cinemas starring a magnetic Leonardo DiCaprio playing former Wall Street stockbroker, Jordan Belfort.

I have always loved Leo. Mainly for his acting and great films, but I also have a fond affection for celebrities sharing my age.  Leo and me were born the same year.  Kate Moss too.  

Leo is sterling in the film and despite thinking it would drag on – given the fact I’d read one New York Times review that said it was too long - as well the letter from the daughter of one of the men in Belfort’s circle (see link: Hollywood Reporter) suggesting we should know better, have a moral conscience, and boycott the film – I absolutely loved it.

Perhaps however, I shouldn’t have. This story is all too familiar. Not in the generic sense of we all know how Wall Street breeds greed but because I lived through a similar scene.  Yeah, right before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, I was on the periphery of my own Wolf circle.  

As a result of dating one of them, I was a bystander to the antics of rich and privileged boys living it up in Sydney. Their bonds made stronger by making money together.  They achieved this largely by playing the stock market guided by the tips of one of their buddies – a broker. His specialty, like Belfort’s, was ‘penny stock’.

And just like the film, I was one of the people who got caught up in the excitement of investing my money in this penny stock, believing it would be the winning financial ticket.

Only I lost it all.  And just like the film (where Matthew McConaughey’s character encourages Leo’s to give investors a false sense of a win) I would see many of my investments double on paper in a matter of weeks.  But I was too hooked and blind to cash out and as a subsequence I followed a roller coaster of ups and downs, watching it peak, then fall, climb a little again, only to crash and burn after GFC.

Post-GFC my Dad sent me an article from well-known Australian stock market analyst Charlie Aitken. I had been shaking my head in disbelief at the cold hard reality that I’d just gambled and lost my savings on fairy dust.

In this letter, Charlie quoted a line from the poem Desiderata: You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.  

Charlie had quoted this in the context that his readers must understand if you are going to play the stock market, there will be wins and there will be losses.  Life goes on.

There are lessons to learn from this and I hope I’ve learned mine.  My father likened the crowd my boyfriend fraternized with as “cowboys” and he was right.  But unlike me, the cowboys were part of the Wolf pack and they cut their gains before they could lose. Just like Belfort and his team of brokers.

I guess the point is – I recognized a lot of my own experience in this film.  But like a lot of personal tragedies they wear to a reflective smile and wisened soul over time. 

Remember when

Douglas handed me a piece of goat's milk cheddar on a slice of sour dough loaf bought from Sonoma’s gourmet store, Epicurean Connection, and poured me a tasting of Hawkes’ 2011 Gravel Bar Chardonnay. 

“Here, try this,” he smiled.

I sipped and savoured the wine, took a bite of the food, and enjoyed that sensation when time stands still as the wine, cheese and sour dough combined in my mouth delighting my tastebuds.

But of course time waits for no-one and in its constant steady march we are but passengers.

Perhaps this is why I can cast my mind back to similar occasions (like the one Douglas inadvertently had just imprinted on my memory).

Because how often can time stand still?  For wine enthusiasts, it can feel like it does when one partakes in a good wine.

I recall the glass of Prosecco, a varietal I was trying for the first time with my German friend Trixi, whom I had visited in her hometown of Frankfurt after meeting her the year before on a travel tour in Africa.

The bottle of Rose, my good friend from Sydney, Ischa, who had recently moved abroad and I shared on the embankment of an Amsterdam canal, under the diminishing light as a coveted July summer evening slipped by.

The sips of Penfolds Grange I snuck from my father’s glass when he had decided to splurge with his partner at the time, opening the $450 bottle over birthday dinner at a family pizzeria in Melbourne.

For me, many memories partner with wine along with music, people and travel.

I listened to Portishead’s debut album Dummy, over and over again in the Berlin flat of an Irish architect I’d met while backpacking around Europe, and again in the upscale east side Manhattan apartment ANZ had provided for dad during his six weeks working in New York. 

I sipped red wine from my local gastro pub, Lamaros, in South Melbourne and listened to Mumford & Sons as I packed up my home of six years to travel India and eventually relocate to the States.

Good wine makes lasting memories and one can’t argue, it’s best to bottle that. 

Photo - Ischa's lovely painted toenails in Amsterdam that sunny July day in 2008 with our rose.

Wine tasting

The first time I went wine tasting was as a tag along ‘plus 1’ on my friend’s work wine tour.

Justine was working at global law firm, DLA Phillips Fox, and its Melbourne office of young lawyers had rented a tour bus and guide to take us for a day’s tasting in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.

A group of rowdy young women enroute and back made for enjoyable times at the wineries. 

Justine and I have gone onto more wine adventures together – one where we drove for three and a half hours with our friend Renato and his friends, just to experience the lunch we’d read about in newspaper reviews at one of Victoria’s wineries.

Of course wine tasting allows a wonderful avenue for romances to blossom and couples to strengthen bonds and friends and family to make nourishing memories.

Many a wedding reception has taken place at a winery – and it’s also an opportunity to do something nice with your parents - guaranteed both parties will enjoy. 

Hawkes’ winery has the good fortune to see such gatherings pass in our tasting rooms every day.

Wine tasting has something for everyone, including the solo wine taster.  

Why not treat yourself to the nectar of the gods next time you’re walking by a winery?

Photo - partners in crime when it comes to sharing good wine and times: me, Renato and Justine (albeit at the races this occasion and not wine tasting).

An Australian in Sonoma

“So has anyone commented on your accent yet?” my 23 year old friend from Boston, Andrew, asked me recently via a skype session.

“No, no-one,” I say. 

Andrew has somewhat of an obsession with Australians.  I met him while he was doing an internship at the company I was working with in Melbourne and despite our 15 year age difference; we bonded over Mad Men. The friendship was solidified when he introduced me to Game of Thrones and further endorsed Breaking Bad (my friend Renato had long been telling me I must watch it too).

Andrew had the typical American drawl and as a typical Aussie, I chose a nickname for him – not particularly original – I called him “Boston”.

Boston is now back in Boston, working in a great job after completing his information systems degree at Carnegie Mellon.  Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, long distance friendships are made relatively easy these days – something called facebook?

In anycase, it’s always stuck with me that Andrew liked the way I speak.  Specifically, he liked the way I speak, because it’s with an Australian accent.

It was not until my first Saturday at Hawkes tasting room that I finally witnessed the true American amour for my accent.

Even though I’d been travelling through the States since March, people had obviously resisted commenting on it as an everyday citizen.  But working in the tasting room – it would appear I’m open game for inquiry.

“Where are you from – New Zealand or Australia?” one taster would ask. “Is that an Australian accent?” another would ponder.  “Whereabouts in Australia are you from?” was the most frequently asked, followed by “Oh, I’ve not been to Melbourne – or I’ve been to Melbourne!”

An Aussie in Sonoma is supposedly a curious thing.

Photo - me, pouring wine at Hawkes tasting room in Sonoma.

Napa vs Sonoma

I liken it to city mouse vs country mouse.  Sonoma is the country mouse but he’s sure dressed well.  Downtown Napa feels like it has extra gloss - town in Sonoma while so pretty – has more of a village feel.  And to raise a family, they say it takes a village. Sonoma feels like that, like mama’s opened her arms and is giving you a big, warm hug, whereas in Napa it feels like all the mamas are probably in pilates class.  

Napa is gorgeous country.  But it has a BIG reputation, and therefore it has to be a little bit snooty to live up to that, don’t you think?  I still think St Helena (in the Napa Valley)  - a stunning boutique town - and the Silverado Trail which is a long road with these huge, gorgeous Napa wineries lined up side by side is the closest piece of vista heaven in wine country I’ve come across in California. 

Photo - Regusci winery - Silverado Trail, Napa Valley