As Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has grown older, his game has changed.
His palate has matured as well.
Newton joked that he spent his mini-bye weekend after their loss last Thursday enjoying a glass of wine and a cigar, indulgences he’s only recently acquired.
“I’m 29 years old,” Newton said, via Marcel Louis-Jacques of the Charlotte Observer, “and you know I ain’t eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and animal crackers at night.
“So many people are into it. It is relaxing, it is something that warms the soul, so to speak, with a very rigorous day that you would imagine I could have at times.”
Newton has consulted with one of the Panthers’ food service company supervisors, Rudy Patino, who is an actual sommelier, as he tries to learn what he likes and why (he’s currently drinking sauvignon blanc. Well hopefully not currently, it’s the morning, and while he’s older he’s not a suburban soccer mom yet).
“We have a sommelier on staff, Mr. Rudy. I didn’t know that until last year, I was giving a couple players one of my favorite wines and he was just telling me everything about it,” Newton said. “I had just watched the documentary on Netflix, ‘Somm,’ and that was just so cool to me.
“I feel like if I had a gift or a hidden talent outside of playing an instrument, I would want to be a sommelier. Those senses that you have — for those who don’t know it, it’s being able to distinctively tell what type of wine it is, where it’s from and everything about the wine by just the taste, the look and pretty much the feel of the wine.
“It was just pretty cool to come across a person on a day to day basis that knows what they’re talking about. It’s just like playing football, it’s an ongoing thing that you have to constantly keep taking your nose and your tastebuds through.”
In that way, it’s like his development as a passer, as he’s completing passes at a career-high 68.5 percent clip, and still using his skills as a runner to keep the Panthers offense moving.
