For many, wine can be beautiful and pleasurable, mysterious and complicated. For others, it is downright intimidating at times. When I find myself roaming the aisles staring blankly at a wall of wine, the abundance of options results in an endless self-debate to reach a decision on which bottle of wine to select. Fortunately, with experience, this process for me has gradually been optimized to not require more than an hour of helpless pondering. I can only claim this achievement, however, due to the numerous times rehearsing different wine-selecting scenarios, both physically and mentally. Through this, I noticed there were rarely any consistent selection criteria, and despite the abundant information and resources available at attempting to demystify wine, I never could answer a simple question:
What is the most important thing?
When thinking about this, my mind takes me back to the beginning of my wine drinking journey. Everyone starts somewhere near zero as a wine lover, and I have had probably more than a few gaffes that may sound funny now but were probably gut wrenching at the time. My understanding was pretty simple really, more or less occasion based. Friend or me celebrating a birthday or promotion? Champagne. Dinner with the significant (or soon to be significant) other? Wine, as long as it is red. What about dessert wine? Never, because I heard someone said only people with bad taste drink sweet wine.
In all honesty, my journey could have stopped there, since wine was merely a commodity for my consumption. I wasn’t able to recall the different grape varieties, clarify the kind of wines characteristics I favored, or discern the different flavors and textures of a wine presented to me.
But, as I continued drinking wine, for some reason I just wanted to get to know wine a little bit more than just a beverage. I started paying attention to the more accessible information of what grape I was drinking and where it came from. Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand was always a crowd pleaser. The Malbec from Mendoza and Shiraz from Barossa Valley were great alternatives to Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa or Bordeaux, because their price tag was usually shorter. A Burgundy means Pinot Noir if it’s red and Chardonnay if it’s white. Also, for some reason, no one liked Chardonnay from anywhere (but loved drinking white Burgundies).
Interestingly, once I started to pay attention and verbalize the specific varietals I looked for, I somehow turned into the ‘wine guy’ among friends – an absolute burden during group dinners. But that title also afforded me opportunities to speak with restaurant sommeliers who were more than happy to assist. I started to learn about such wines such as Riesling from Germany and Austria and their diverse capacity to be either dry or sweet, Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile and their incredible heritage linked with France, Sherry from Spain and their unique flavor profile, and Port from Portugal and their incredible ageing potential.
My confidence in understanding my taste grew as my knowledge expanded. The wine lists (sometimes books) didn’t seem so daunting anymore, and wine labels didn’t seem as abstract like a Jackson Pollock anymore. But that just meant I had a variety in mind when asked for the kind of wines I was looking for. I didn’t really understand the components that drew me towards a wine, and I still didn’t have an answer if someone asked me:
So, what is the most important thing?
So, when I first heard about the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) courses and curriculums a few years ago, there was a rush of excitement because it seemed like a legitimate opportunity to learn about wine in a structured environment. And the class was indeed rewarding, covering not just some of the most important wine regions in the world and their corresponding grape varieties, but also the different attributes that composes a wine and sets them apart from each other. We learnt that – wines with low acidity were softer and smoother while wines with high acidity created a mouthwatering texture, tannins from less ripe grapes are more aggressively astringent while riper grape’s tannins were more supple and texturally rich, wines with lower alcohol levels feel lighter while wines with higher alcohol levels feel heavier, wine’s flavor and aroma characters are broken down into three different categories (primary, secondary, and tertiary) and there are more sub-categories (e.g. green fruit, citrus fruit, spice, oak, etc.) within each category, and so forth.
There were also other external conditions that contribute to the wine characteristics which we learnt about, such as altitude of vineyards, average rainfall and temperature of different regions, vineyards’ proximity to water and how it moderates temperatures, soil composition of different regions, and many more. But in all honesty, these variables of wine are still a challenge for me. Moreover, with all of this information, I feel at risk of information overload instead of narrowing down what matters. There are too many variables and nuances, not to mention the amount of words required to capture all of them. Am I really answering the question?
My initial goal was simply to help myself navigate the challenges of selecting wines. Sure, knowing a particular grape variety, a region’s specialty, a certain acidity or tannic level, or a certain altitude or climate condition, can be helpful context. But we have to consider, wine is not static and is constantly evolving, winemakers are grappling with the challenges of changing climate and growing conditions, and we are constantly adjusting our taste preferences. From listening to winemakers and sommeliers discuss wine, there seems to be a consistent thread that suggests everyone is constantly learning and adapting. There doesn’t seem to be someone that can credibly claim a universally recognized set of categories most important to wine.
So, is there a most important thing?
I suppose, the most important thing is knowing that I’ll never know it all, and that it is a continuous learning journey. Wine is extremely subjective and personal, so the more time and effort I spend trying to establish rigid definitions, the less room I allow myself to experience surprises. For anyone out there that’s still trying to search for their definition, I kindly suggest to never let your appreciation and learning of wine to stop, and to not try too hard. Anyone at any stage on their journey, as long as they are moving forward, should not feel ashamed and ought to feel satisfied of their progress. There is just too much knowledge and information, so if you meet someone one day who claims to know everything, please be reminded of the Mark Twain quote:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”