Wine

Wine is a pretty intimidating topic for most people. There seems like so much choice and so little usable information at your fingertips. There are tons of apps, magazines, blogs, and people who will tell you their opinion, but how do you navigate through that and find a bottle to drink?

First, you need to decide why you are drinking wine. I know it sounds pretentious, but it is true. Are you drinking just for pleasure, and therefore looking for the most “delicious” wine? Are you drinking wine to experience something new and develop an appreciation for it? You may be doing both (I certainly do) but at different times. Let’s look at it this way. We decide why we are eating every time we put food in our mouths, but not consciously, because we’ve done it so many times before in our life. While lasagna may be your favorite food, you wouldn’t eat lasagna for every meal, every day, for the rest of your life. At some point you will crave things like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the crunch of potato chips, a big chocolate chip cookie, and on a special occasion you may be willing to splurge and go out to a fancy restaurant and try something you’ve never had before. It drives me crazy to hear people talk about wine in absolutes; they only drink red, only white, only Napa Cabs, only Spanish Rioja, only Bordeaux. Wine is every bit as varied and nuanced as food, limiting yourself to one type of wine seems as crazy to me as limiting yourself to lasagna for the rest of your life.

But you’ve been eating for as long as you can remember. You can imagine the taste and texture of an oreo cookie, a tortilla chip or a baby carrot, without having to put any effort into it. How many times have you eaten in your life? How many different things have you tasted? Now compare that to wine. How much wine have you tried in your lifetime and how many different wines have you tasted?

Drink more wine.

If you really want to be able to find wine you enjoy, research and reading will help, but nothing will be as important as simply tasting wine. Taste it, think about it, and compare it to others you’ve had. To help you along the way, I’ve got several links and resources. I’ll be updating regularly, so check back often.