Before you go deep, you have to go wide
Reject complacency, embrace beginner-dom, and get your exploring pants on
A trend began to emerge during and shortly after the pandemic: across many areas of our lives, we were gravitating towards the familiar. New movies and shows struggled to get traction, while back episodes of Seinfeld and other favorites over got rewatched again. Once we were able to get back out to restaurants, chefs noticed that comfort foods like pasta and burgers were hot. New ideas, more challenging ingredients, and food that required you to reach a little, were not.
This all makes sense. When you’re going through something difficult, you look for comfortable things. And Lord knows, even though the pandemic is in the rearview we’ve still got a lot going on. But if you want to get the most out of your wine drinking, you got to be willing to try something new every now and then.
Most people have already decided what kind of wine they like. This also is natural. With topics like wine, architecture, and art where being a beginner can feel intimidating, most of us try to find a safe little nook where we can assert our affection without exposing what we don’t know. The danger is that can leave you in a tiny room for a long time. (I encourage any architecture buffs to come get me out of the Phillip Johnson room. I’m ready to leave but can’t find my way out!)
Similarly, I encounter a lot of people who have picked a favorite grape or region (or both) and have been in that room for a long time already. It is perfectly fine to prefer Cabernet Sauvignon or Australia for example, but if you’re not tasting other things, you could be missing out on something you’d like even better. And on top of that, specialization should always emerge from general knowledge. You can’t jump into mechanical engineering without understanding physics. Before you go deep, you have to go wide.
Deciding to try is the hardest part. Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is find someone who knows more than you and say, “I’m feeling stuck and want to try something new. What would you suggest?” I’m refreshing my inbox already.
Housekeeping note: From this point forward, I’m going to aim to publish short general missives like this every Monday and a new series called Slurper of the Week on Thursdays. Slurper of the Week will be a short spotlight on bottles I love.
I will do my best to be consistent, but reserve the right to miss a week or readjust the schedule later on should laziness or a strong hangover take hold.