Show Your Wine Some Love

Wine Love

I once read a book that claimed that the molecules in a glass of water would change if you told them “I love you.” The author claimed that saying positive affirmations to liquid molecules made the structures of the molecules change, blossom and grow. If you said negative commands to the water the molecular structures would crack and break. It sounded crazy to me, but he did have some pretty convincing pictures.

Who knew that this weird book would stick with me all the way to my wedding day when I began to wonder, if it worked for water, could it work for wine? My husband and I love wine–we got married in a vineyard in Oregon overlooking Mt. Hood and collect wines from all over the world. We decided that in lieu of a guest sign-in-book at our wedding, we would have guests sign our favorite bottles of wine. Each bottle was chosen to be aged perfectly for our 1st through 5th wedding anniversary where we would drink them one at a time each year.

Wine: I Love You

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I watched guests sign the bottles on our wedding day, gold and silver sharpies gliding over the glass with messages of “We love you!” from the Edwards Family. Or “Have this glass on us with love” from the Ross Family. I couldn’t wait to drink the wine inside them. One year later was our first chance, when we opened our dedicated 1st anniversary bottle: a 2007 Barbaresco.

We decided to celebrate with our first bottle in the small town of Astoria on the Oregon coast. We popped the cork at a restaurant on the revamped dock of an old cannery wharf overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The sky was crystal clear, the ocean calm and we read aloud the wishes from our friends and family circling the bottle. Barry told us, “We had waited long enough for this special day!” Sarah told us, “First year of love for many more.”

As the wine had a chance to breathe, I told Scott, my husband, about the crazy water book that inspired this idea in the first place and we peered at the deep red in our glasses. Had the molecules changed, blossomed and grown from all of those well wishes? As we took our first sips, we became convinced it was one of the best glasses of wine we had ever had. Maybe that book wasn’t so crazy after all.

Vanessa Van Edwards is a human behavior hacker. Her groundbreaking research, quirky citizen science projects and unique business approach have been featured on CNN, Huffington Post and Business Week.