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Wine is not about snobbery

A year and a half ago, I noted, on these pages, that the wine boom had finally hit India.

This was not to say that India was making terrific wine. (Some Indian wine is very good, but lots of it – especially the overhyped stuff you tend to read about – is rubbish.) It was not even to say that we were all drinking wine now.

 

All I meant by my assertion about the wine boom was that people were being offered wine more often than before. There was more pressure to order wine at restaurants – if not from the waiters then from other people at the table who wanted some. Wine was making an appearance at parties. And people who would once have drunk only vodka, whisky or beer were beginning to order wine.

 

   So, in an effort to satisfy the general curiosity about wine I offered a basic guide – grape varieties, regions, ordering etiquette, etc.

 

   Judging by the responses that column evoked, people were hungry for information about wine. But I couldn’t help feeling I’d left something out. And then last week, while reading a 2012 book by Eric Asimov called How To Love Wine, I finally realised what it was. Asimov is the wine critic of The New York Times and he reckons that, more than ignorance, there is just one factor that prevents people from enjoying wine. He calls it Wine Anxiety. And, of course, he is absolutely right.

 

   As he writes: “Wine causes a sense of dread and suspicion... A sense of obligation and anxiety, with its feeling of inadequacy, is the biggest single obstacle to deriving pleasure from wine... No other field of pleasure comes saddled with the same sense of obligation... The primary purpose of wine is to provide pleasure and refreshment... With a mission so seemingly simple, why is it that wine and its trappings seem so often to breed a feeling of inadequacy?”

 

   It is a good question. You may or may not know a lot about food. But when you order, say, a tandoori chicken, do you care where the chicken was bred or how large the tandoor was? When you go and see a movie, does it matter to you what camera was used or whether the actors shot it on location or in studios?

 

   My guess is: no. You just enjoy (or don’t enjoy) the damn thing. So why is wine so different?

 

   Why do you worry about ordering the right bottle? Why do you say, apologetically, “I’m afraid I don’t know much about wine?’’ Why do you regard the wine list with suspicion and dread?

 

   Why can’t you just enjoy the wine?

 

   I could relate to Asimov’s experiences because he grew up in America in a period when most people did not drink wine at home. (Unlike, say, Europe, where everyone grows up drinking wine.)  Most of us in India are in the same situation. But then, we didn’t all grow up eating sushi. Yet we don’t treat it with dread. We didn’t grow up with smartphones. But we are not suspicious of them. We had hardly heard of Netflix till a few years ago. But now that the service has come to India, we try to embrace it without any doubt or feelings of inadequacy.  So why is wine so different?

 

   For most of us, I suspect, it is because we regard wine as something complex, difficult to understand, expensive and foreign. Well, yes. But then so are smartphones. And so, I guess, is sushi. But they don’t intimidate us in quite the same way. But there is something about wine that makes it particularly intimidating. And two sets of people have made money out of our inadequacy. The first are the people who treat wine as a branded product. They will tell you that they only drink Cristal champagne or such famous red wines as Domaine de la Romanée-Conti or Château Latour. They will drop these names in the same way that snobs brag that their watches are by Patek Philippe, their suits from Savile Row or their bags from Hermès.

 

   But never forget this: wine is not about snobbery. It is about taste. It is about fun. If someone only drinks big-name wines, then doesn’t that only prove that he is so inadequate and so unsure of his own tastes that he has to fall back on brand names and snob value? A person who says he only drinks famous (and expensive) wines is even more wine-anxious than you or me.

 

 "The only teacher about wine you ever need is a corkscrew. So drink wine often. The more wines you try, the more experienced your palate will be."

   The second approach is the American mission to ‘demystify wine’. This route, pioneered by the likes of Robert Parker, the wine writer, involves giving marks to wine. This marking system always confuses non-Americans because it is based on the US practice where you get 50 out of 100 for just showing up. So if a wine gets 80 points, that doesn’t mean that it has got eight out of ten or a distinction. It means it is mediocre. The good wines all get 90 or above.

 

   Yes, it’s a strange system!

 

   The problem with marks out of 100 is that it reduces wine to bogusly objective absolutes. Would you ever mark food the same way? Can you really give a Big Mac a 95, a Whopper 97, a Fat Boy burger 86 and so on? Of course you can’t.

 

   Food is subjective. I may prefer a Big Mac to a Whopper. There is no objective way of saying I am wrong or of giving them marks. So it is with wine. But the demystification (or idiotic simplification) of wine is, at least, easier to understand than the system of tasting notes, which can be gibberish. Asimov quotes one review from the Wine Spectator: “The wine is still tightly wound, with a brooding core of mulled currant, warm fig sauce and maduro tobacco, liberally laced with tapenade and lavender notes….” This is just nonsense. When you drink wine, do you really want it to taste of maduro tobacco or tapenade (an olive paste)? You can’t really ever put taste in words, no matter how flowery you make them.

 

   Try and write two sentences describing the taste of Coca-Cola. You’ll see how it is nearly impossible to turn taste experiences into sentences.

 

   So, if you are to avoid wine anxiety, what should you do? Some thoughts:

 

   Throw away all that gibberish about snobby, fancy brand names. Ignore any marks awarded to the wine. Tear up all those flowery tasting notes.

 

   Remember that most wine is traditionally drunk with food. Do not treat it like vodka or whisky. Eat something with it.

 

   Yes, wine is an acquired taste. It is not Coca-Cola. It will take you at least a couple of weeks of experimentation before you begin to develop a taste for it.

 

   You don’t need to be particularly knowledgeable about it. Let’s take an example. If you are really into Star Wars, you may enjoy reading about how they made the movies. But you don’t need to have read anything to enjoy the film. It is the same with wine.

 

    The only teacher about wine you ever need is a corkscrew. So drink wine often. The more wines you try, the more experienced your palate will be.

 

   If, at first, you can’t tell the difference between a cheaper Indian wine – say, Sula – and Montrachet, don’t worry. Drink the Sula till you are ready for something better.

 

   Never order a wine that a sommelier pushes in an Indian restaurant. The vast majority of Indian sommeliers are useless and are only trying to get rid of dead stock. You are better off experimenting on your own.

 

   When you are abroad, the opposite principle applies. If you are in a good restaurant in the West, tell the sommelier what your budget is and ask him/her to suggest something that goes with the meal. I’ve discovered more wines that way than I have by reading about wine.

 

   Remember that when you drink wine, you are the boss, not the bottle. If you don’t like it, well then, you don’t like it. Never feel obliged to pretend you like it because it is a famous or expensive wine. Treat wine as you would, say, a samosa. Do you ever feel obliged to pretend to like a samosa? It is the same with wine. You have ordered it. You are paying for it. Why on Earth should you feel intimidated?

 

   Never forget that wine is not an end in itself. It is just one part of the experience. Ever wonder why the nice Chianti you had in Florence tasted so wonderful? Well, it was probably because you were having a good time and you drank it with a good meal. The same bottle may not have tasted as good in a bar in Bandra-Kurla Complex or Cyber Hub.

 

   Ultimately, wine, like food, is no more than an enabler. The point of enjoying wine is not the wine itself. It is you. And the only thing that matters is how much you enjoy it.

 

 

CommentsComments

  • SKg 15 Feb 2016

    Very well said!

  • R K Srivastava 07 Feb 2016

    A very instructive and learned dissertation.

Posted On: 06 Feb 2016 03:20 PM
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