Why, hello there

Wine. Let’s talk about it.

People make fermented grape juice into a really big deal, and then make you feel stupid for not knowing the intimate details of soil and climate in each specific subregion of the world.

That just doesn’t fly with me. I am professionally trained. I work at a prestigious winery known for unique processing, and a vineyard full of uncommon varietals. Though, I am not Jesus and able to turn water into wine, I know more than Jon Snow. Who clearly, knows nothing about wine either.

Ah wine, yes it is confusing to get into in terms of where to start. It seems you have two options, be met by someone who spews information at you so quickly you can’t comprehend it (or notice if it is incorrect), or quietly pick the second cheapest bottle with the most eye catching label. My goal here is to try to help you find a middle ground; to fill you with intelligent things to say at your next dinner party about the second cheapest bottle of wine that you find.

Wine isn’t unique in its ability to confound people. I think it has to do with fermented things. I mean, people are also confused by beer, cider, even kimchi. Fermentation scares people.

What is fermentation? In simple terms it is taking sugars and turning them into alcohol. It is more complex than that and has to do with temperature and yeast, but let’s not get into that because the purpose of this is NOT to be a pompous jerk.

But basically: more sugar = less alcohol; more alcohol = less sugar. This is why when you finally found a wine that you liked (at an age we won’t discuss), you were probably sadly disappointed to see it was only 10% alcohol. This probably made you pick one you like less, but since you were probably going out, lets’ be honest, was more effective before you hit the club.  It also meant that if you had the same amount of ounces of pure alcohol from the one you like more (less alcohol), and the one you like less (less sugar) you had a worse hangover from your wine of preference (less alcohol) thanks to the amount of sugar. Which is why you probably don’t like it anymore.

Before moving forward, here are 5 things you should try to take away from this initial rant:

1)   There are many kinds of wine. We will say the main types are: white, red, rosé, sparkling (ex: champagne), and fortified (ex: port)

2)   There are thousands of kinds of grapes you can make wine from, from different kinds of vines, all used for different purposes. You typically don’t see many established wineries making wine out of table grapes, but it has/does happen

3)   People always reference New and Old World wine. To make things easy, assume New World is everywhere that is not Europe (ex: Chile, Australia, USA) and Old World is Europe (ex: France, Italy, Portugal). Just remember Pocahontas. John Smith and his evil boss were drinking wine on that ship, meanwhile she was just trying to hang out with Grandmother Willow and not marry Kocoum.

4)   If you try a wine, and you don’t like it, don’t blame the grape. It may not be the grape’s fault! They were just hanging out, relaxing in the sun, and then someone literally ripped them from their home, and squeezed the life out of them. It would be like someone trying a hot dog and then saying they don’t like meat. Sometimes they relate for sure, but sometimes you just need an example of that grape that came from different conditions (ex: country, region, year, producer)

5)   Wine isn’t this thing that was created for everyone to spend all their money on for status, though that is a common function of it (which is why Jesus turned that water into wine, that would have been an awkward party).  It was originally used to purify water, people. Wine was better to drink than water because the alcohol killed all the bad things floating around. Rome wasn’t built in a day because they were drunk from trying not to drink poison water. The Egyptians have drawings of grapes, vines and jugs painted in the walls of tombs and other historical sites. True story.

Good, now I have established the basics and we can go from here!

Real talk: wine isn’t scary. It is more than grapes and fun labels and trying to be the second cheapest. But it is also so much more than that bottle you’re too scared to touch because it costs the same as your rent and covered in dust. There is an in-between. I promise. I hope we can all get there!

All my love,

M