Shopping for the grapey drink can be adventurous
It was a cold grey Saturday afternoon when a discouraged looking man slumped into my wine shop his hands deep in his pockets and his face wearing an uneasy frown.
In an effort to lift his spirits I offered him a splash of red wine a rustic Châteauneuf-du-Pape that was sure to do the trick. But he instantly waved me off and darted towards the back of the store. Feeling a little rejected I cautiously approached the gentleman and offered to help him select a wine. He shot me a look that said my presence made him anxious and he muttered half to himself “I hate buying wine.” Guardedly I led him to a couple of wines I hoped he would like trying to make the experience as painless as possible.
Afterwards I started thinking why would anyone hate shopping for wine? Shopping for wine should be fun. And it’s a hell of a lot more fun than shopping for tires socks or school supplies. But what I came to realize is that many people do not find it fun because they find the experience confusing and possibly intimidating.
There seems to be some expectation that you have to know something about wine before you can buy it. But you don’t need to know anything about wine to have a positive shopping experience; in fact it helps if you don’t! Sounds odd but it’s true. If you know a bit about wine you tend to look for the things you already know consequently you leave out what you don’t know which often means missing out on some fabulous stuff.
One thing that can make shopping for wine so annoying is the useless resources out there designed to aid the “helpless wine consumer” from making catastrophic mistakes. The shelf talkers websites buying guides and magazines with tear-out scores prey on the fact that people don’t feel confident enough about wine to choose for themselves.
In reality all you need to take with you to buy wine is your taste buds. If you shop somewhere full of notes explaining why the “experts” like these wines instead of at a place that opens up the bottles so that you can decide for yourself you probably need to find a new place to shop.
So stop worrying about what you think you are supposed to know about wine. Just taste and reflect on how that taste makes you feel — happy sad or ripped off? Then decide if that wine is worth buying. Remember there are no right or wrong answers and nobody knows it all. A wine expert is just a myth propagated by the guy in the room who happens to know the most about wine.
There are thousands of wines available in Calgary and chances are you will like more than one of them so don’t feel pressured to “get the right one.” There are dozens upon dozens of “right ones.” Finding one wine and sticking to it is the worst thing you can do. If you are looking for absolute consistency in wine then you can expect to find mediocrity right alongside it. Finding great wines means taking risks and it’s expected you won’t love everything you taste.
Think about wine the way you order food in a restaurant. Just because you like chicken doesn’t mean you order it every time you go out. Sometimes you go for the duck the bison and when you’re feeling risqué maybe you try the rabbit the bone marrow or the liver.
The same goes for wine so take a chance and you might actually find something entirely unexpected and wonderful.
