By Robyn James

Here’s a conversation that takes place in my store about once a week.

Nervous Customer:  “Rosebud Chenin Blanc is my favorite wine, is that a good wine?”

Me:  “Of course it is, it has to be if it’s your favorite wine.”

Whoever decided wine had to be an intimidating subject better not come around because I would like to slap them silly.  Surely, they are long gone from the face of this earth, but they left plenty of disciples to carry their torch.

I love wine.  I love to taste it, read about it and talk about it; however, it is my full time job to know about it. 

So when someone says, Oh, I feel so stupid, I don’t know anything about wine, how did you learn so much?  Well, that’s all I do, all I have done for over 20 years.  How did you learn so much about engineering?  Nursing?  Graphic art?

There is a huge difference between a Wine Snob and a Wine Aficionado (that sounds snobby too, doesn’t it?  Say Wine Lover.)

The Wine Snob really isn’t interested in talking about wine, as in having a two-sided conversation.  They just want to impress upon you how much they know and more importantly, how little you know.  When, all you really need to know is what you like.

I always feel compelled to attend my industry’s trade tastings that our suppliers offer for retailers and restaurateurs, but not without some small sense of dread.  I will always end up sitting next to the 21 year old wine steward who raises his hand and says, “Is this wine from hillside vineyards?  It tastes like it is.”  Then they launch into a litany about their trip to the chateau and claim to know the minutest details of the harvest, including what the vintner and his wife were arguing about that day.

They never ask questions in order to learn about the wines, they are only making pompous statements to reassure us that they know more than the winemaker in front of us.  It’s usually after one of these, that I raise my hand and when called on by the winemaker, I say, “This wine is yummy.”  I get a real perverse pleasure out of that. 

It’s a guarantee that the kid next to me will definitely not try to talk to me anymore.

But, the winemaker always loves it. 

Wine is a very perceptive beverage.  Eighty percent of what you taste is what you smell.  And, obviously, we all don’t like the same smells or tastes anymore than we all don’t like the same clothes or furniture. We all don’t smell or taste the same things.  I might smell violets, you may smell roses.  AND THAT’S OKAY. 

Most of the descriptions in magazines that you read are put together by panels of people who are tasting different things.  They are meant as a guide to help you choose flavors that are appealing to you.  They are not meant to make you feel lacking in palate sensors because you can’t detect the “initial layer of antique cigar box with a nuance of spring daisies and an arc of cassis and tar notes.”

Here are five steps to combat wine snobbery:

1)  Drink what you like.

If  you like it, drink it.  Wine is about pleasure, not one-upmanship. 

2)  You can break the rules.

Return to #1.  When someone tells me they want a wine to go with their Curried Chicken that night, that’s fine, but first I need to know what you usually like.  Drinking white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat is restrictive, boring and often unreliable. 

3)  It’s OK to ask for help.

Don’t feel dumb asking for help, there are so many esoteric wines available today, the labels don’t reveal the flavors and a good retailer has usually tasted every wine in stock.  State what you like, what food you are having and what your budget is.

4)  Expensive doesn’t always mean better.

You can take grapes from the best vineyard, aged in French oak barrels and still have bad wine.  High prices don’t always guarantee quality – they could be just overpriced. The best values often come from undiscovered or under appreciated regions that produce good wines at reasonable prices.

5)  It’s fun to experiment.

There’s no substitute for pulling corks.  The best way to learn about wine is to drink it.  Although it’s comforting to stick with your beloved favorite, there’s a world of wine to discover out there.  If you had your favorite dish every night, you would eventually get sick of it. Same goes for wine.  Be brave and branch out!