The Big Green House

Monday, July 14, 2003

 

Drinkin� wine, spodee-odee, drinkin� wine

Wine, to quote someone somewhere, is a Good Thing. It�s just a shame that, in this country at least, there�s such a large amount of bullshit involved in people�s perception thereof. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the only thing I can think of more chock-full of the potential for hand-wringing and pretension is poetry - and let�s face it, no one ever caught a buzz from �Ode to a Grecian Urn�. Nobody you�d want to sleep with, anyway.

Americans are, by and large, brought up to fear wine. A lot of this intimidation stems from the formal role wine has taken in our society. That�s fine, up to a point; sometimes it�s good to have a little extra meaning to things. Toasting someone with a nice glass of wine carries a little more weight than doing so with, say, Kool-aid. The problem starts when people are so cowed by the sense of mystery and complication associated with the selection of a wine that they just give up, go down to the Wal-Mart, and buy another box of white zinfandel. Or, if they�re feeling adventuresome, maybe a bottle of merlot. And while I�ve capped on both of those wines at one time or another, the truth is that good wine is wine that you like. If that�s what you want in the way of fermented grape, more power to you. There is, however, a wide, wonderful world of really yummy, really interesting and not-really-expensive wine out there, once you get past that initial panic.

Enjoying good wine doesn�t have to be rocket science, nor does it have to be stuffy. It can be as simple or as complicated, as formal or informal, as you want to make it. I�m no �expert� by any stretch of the imagination, but I (usually) know what I want and I know how to get it. With a little research, anyone can. It�s gonna involve some experimentation on your part, and at some point you�re probably going to have to find a wine dealer whose taste you trust, but the payoff is fantastic. And you don�t have to go broke getting there; I very rarely pay more than $15 for a bottle of wine, and there are quite a few Science Girl and I have found for less than $10.

So get out there and start drinking. Wine & Spirits magazine is a great place to start looking for ideas. They tend to focus on the more reasonably-priced yet well-made offerings on the market. My advice would be to give the Wine Spectator a wide berth, as they�re mostly about the so-called �wine lifestyle� � pricey bottlings, expense-account restaurants, etc. There�s a place for all that, but it ain�t in my house.

(The above rant was inspired, at least in part, by this story, which made me happy last Friday when I first saw it. I have no idea what their wines taste like, but I wish I�d known about Roshambo while we were down that way. Anyone that wants to demystify and de-snootify wine is OK in my book. Huzzah!)

bmarkey 7/14/2003 10:49:00 PM