by Ethan Johnson
October 1, 2006

I'm not a big believer in drinking to get drunk. For starters, I'm not a "happy drunk", so to anyone who thinks getting me loaded means big fun, uh, no. Also, as with any recreational drug use, I just don't see the need and/or point. But herein lies the dilemma: Why drink wine? It contains alcohol, which can be used and abused to bring about ostensibly more thrilling states of being than abstinence can provide. As for me, I believe in drinking wine for pleasure, not utter escapism. But going down the "pleasure" road has its own unique set of issues, as summarized neatly by the Pratie Place weblog:

So he said: you shouldn't be so lazy, you should try harder to be high-minded. And I said, I'm afraid of those slender volumes with the elegant typesetting, they all look sort of the same and so many of them are full of awful poems, it's like if you had a bowl full of jellybeans and they were all the same color but you knew that a few of them were your favorite flavor and all the rest would taste like baked beans, wouldn't you rather just give them all a pass?

(I personally would say "sawdust" as opposed to baked beans, because I have yet to find anyone who enjoys eating sawdust. And it is less vulgar than... well, you know.)

This hypothetical scenario leads to the determination that 97 to 99% of [whatever] is [sawdust]. That's a lot of misses in search of a hit. But I thought, isn't that what wine appreciation comes down to, really?

I wandered the wine aisle in a local store recently just for kicks. This particular store does a terrible job of categorizing what is where, and why, so I had to do a lot of detective work to determine when I'd stop seeing Cabernet Sauvingnon and perhaps find some other varietal. Being that this was a grocery store, I don't think they put a lot of thought into what they sold, or how. But the upshot is, this particular store wants to cater to the "gourmet" crowd, at least more so than the other "utility" stores in the area.

As I perused their selection, I thought about the decision-making process that went into their wine inventory. Lots of jug and box wine. Lots of "safe" bets like Kendall Jackson, Cavit, and Beringer. They tended to avoid cutesy wine names unless they couldn't help it, like Toasted Head or Red Truck. And yes, a fair amount of White Zinfandel.

The fact is, very few of their customers are going to take a flyer on an unfamilar wine, because there is little incentive (short of sale prices) for them to do so. And the problem with flyers is, they may land in the 99% zone and well short of the desired 1%. If you're independently wealthy, or can write the purchase off as a business expense somehow, then fly to your heart's content. The rest of us want a guarantee that our money is well-spent, and not a recipe for disappointment. Of course, if consistency is the most favored attribute in a drink, stick with orange juice.

Wine is far from consistent, especially the "great" wines. Box and jug wines are notable exceptions. Which may be why they sell so well here in the US. If a bottle of [whatever] smelled like vanilla and tasted like plums and cherries yesterday, there is no guarantee that the next ten will.

Case in point: Dinner this past Friday night at a restaurant that looked fabulous on paper. Food-wise, it was. (I will review it in a future article.) They offer "flights" of wine (3 2-ounce tasting servings) organized by color and type. Since I was having steak, I ordered the flight that contained two Red Zinfandels and one Syrah.

The first Zin tasted rather bitter. The Syrah was "ok", but progressively worsened, and this was before the food arrived. The second Zin smelled like paint thinner from the get-go. When the food came, the wines fought with the food and lost miserably. I ended up sending the flight back, and said "no thanks." Dinner wasn't as satisfying as it might have been, and the wine issues really irritated me. At least they took it off the bill. Come on, if a wine smells like turpentine, you don't serve it hoping nobody will notice or care. (Note: This reinforces why I don't review wine I drink in restaurants.)

As with many pursuits, the goal of pleasure/satisfaction is not always a sure thing. Relationships turn sour, food disappoints, books fizzle, and movies fall flat. If 97 to 99% of everything is crap, why bother?

Because when the hits come along, they really stand out. Our fondest memories are so for a reason. Our favorite foods, books, movies, relationships, and so on stand out because they indeed surpass anything that could be called "crap". In English, we say "I love [whatever]." In Spanish, we would say "[whatever] gives pleasure to me." As I cast about looking for the 1% of wines that I really love, I'll know them immediately, because they'll give pleasure to me. When you know, you know. And that drives the hunt. <EM>

(More of my writings about wine may be found here.)