What I Don't Like About Wine
As far as alcoholic beverages go, there's no one that inspires such snobbery as wine.
Gin drinkers know that a gin martini was de rigeur prior to the cosmopolitan specialty cocktail flavored vodka revolution. But you won't see a gin martini drinker scoff loudly at his/her companion upon seeing a vodka martini served across the bar. Imagine that scenario: "Ugh, he's drinking vodka. He must not know anything about liquor."
That doesn't sound so bad, however, when wine's put into the mix.
"Ugh, she's drinking chardonnay. She must not know anything about wine."
What even funnier is that in the wine world, comments like that actually sometimes hold weight. We're taught to read Wine Spectator and Food & Wine like they're the Bible, to emulate Robert Parker's palate and pick only the wines rated 90 points or above or else. Or else what? You might discover a wine Parker hates that you really like? That you might find a sub-$10 bottle of wine that just tastes good?
I respect these guys for their knowledge and the attention they've brought to the food and beverage world. But there's a point, friends, when we stop being sheep and start taking control of our own palate.
I sometimes avoid something that's been rated on purpose, try to pick something that maybe flew under the radar. I've picked wine because it had an attractive label, or a quirky name. I've picked wine because it looked so fantastically plain on the shelf. I've picked wine because it had my last name, or the name of a town I lived in, or a reference to literature I like. I bought the best bottle I've had this week because its vineyard is called Thirsty Fish, and, well, I'm a Pisces. If this selection process makes me less of a wine drinker, then I've found another thing I don't like about wine.
There are millions of different bottles of wine. Isn't picking one, even if you're Robert Parker, initially a crap shoot? So you go out on a limb and pick a $15 bottle of wine, or a $20, hell, even a $35 bottle of wine, and you hate it. You could just as easily have hated a highly-rated wine.
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January 29, 2008 7:04 PM
Malibu is Burning wrote:
Dr. Vino has again struck gold. His latest post, "What Women Don't Want," discusses a new French marketing tactic in which wine is specifically marketed toward women. According to Decanter, WineSight has put forth nearly thirty French wines under the label Sublimelle, available only online, that they say are designed to be enjoyed for "...a girl's night out, individual tasting pleasure, a romantic dinner, after love making, or a business success." I swear, that's right from the brochure. They are focusing on the British market in particular.Here's why this is positively idiotic and perfectly representative of the ... -
January 29, 2008 7:02 PM
Malibu is Burning wrote:
Dr. Vino has again struck gold. His latest post, "What Women Don't Want," discusses a new French marketing tactic in which wine is specifically marketed toward women. According to Decanter, WineSight has put forth nearly thirty French wines under the label Sublimelle, available only online, that they say are designed to be enjoyed for "...a girl's night out, individual tasting pleasure, a romantic dinner, after love making, or a business success." I swear, that's right from the brochure. They are focusing on the British market in particular.Here's why this is positively idiotic and perfectly representative of the ...
Amen sister. Couldn't agree more. Thumbs way up!
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