What Happens When You Learn More About Wine
As I’ve said it many times, I’ve always been a wine lover and a lot of people in the world consider themselves wine lovers, but what I realize is that there are different kind of wine lovers.
Wine comes in so many varieties and it’s so easy to drink and enjoy that of course you’d expect it to be one of the most loved alcoholic drinks in the world, you don’t have to be an expert to love it and enjoy it, am I right? But what happens when you start learning a little bit more about the story of the wine, or how it’s made, etc.?
Your perception about wine changes dramatically and you madly fall in love, yup! even more in love than before - which I thought was impossible.
I know you’ve probably said one of these things - because I did:
“I only like red wines”.
“I don’t like Chardonnay”.
“Sweet wines? That’s so old school!”
“A wine with screw cap? That might be a low quality wine, no thank you I’ll pass”.
You’ve think a wine is sweet when it actually has fruit forward profile.
The list can’t go on, but I think this are the most common and some of the ones I regret the most saying - specially the first 3.
I use to think winemaking was pretty straight forward, you get a grape variety, squeezy it, fermented and done, now it’s time to bottle it. So, I thought that a Merlot will taste the same no matter the year, region, etc. Oh my! I was so wrong about this…
Wine is affected from so many different components:
The level of ripening of the grapes.
When are the grapes harvested.
Environment: Climate, latitude, altitude, seas, rivers, air, cloud (fog and mist), mountains, slope, how much sun they receive, the type of soil, weather, drought, levels of rain.
Winemaking techniques (yes, there are different ways and things you can do during the winemaking process).
Knowing all this, made me realize Wine is Art. Learning about all this, studying the different grape varieties (which I still have a lot more to discover, there are so many! I’ve study about around 50 grapes varieties and that’s nothing. I had no clue the world of wine was so big.) and the regions, made me want to try everything!!!! Even oaky Chardonnay which I used to say I hated and even made me say I don’t like Chardonnay in general, without knowing that Champagne is made from Chardonnay and that is one of my favorites wines! Can you see how wrong I was?.
I appreciate wine way more know, and give it the respect it deserves. I’m open to try everything without any previous judgement and instead of generalizing or saying XYZ is a bad wine, I say “It’s not my style”. Because there is no bad wine, there’s only wine that you enjoy and wine that is not what your palate likes, but that wine may be someone else's favorite!
It’s subjective, so don’t feel bad if you don’t like the same as your friends, or as the wine expert in the tasting room or shop. But, keep an open mind and don’t discard a type of wine for 1 bottle that you didn’t like, instead try a different region or ask the wine expert in the shop for an alternative on that grape variety, for example: If you didn’t like a Crianza Rioja wine because it had rough tannins, try a Gran Reserva Rioja (it spent more time in oak so tanning are softer), or again the Chardonnay example, if you didn’t like a Chardonnay because it felt too buttery it was because it spent time in oak, so ask for an unoaked Chardonnay instead, which will be more fresh and fruity.
As you can see there are a lot of alternatives, so once again, keep an open mind and keep trying new things. Don’t close the door to any grape variety, the world of wine is huge and you’ll never know what you could be missing. Let’s keep learning together and let us be surprised by new wines! That’s why we created the “Wine of the Week Tasting Challenge”, so you can learn a little bit of what’s behind the wine and try new wines. If you haven’t sign up, you can still do it!.
I can’t wait to continue this wine journey with you and discover the world one glass at a time! Cheers!
