On Fitting In
And finding my wine people
If you’re not deep into wine, most people tend to see it as a monolith: rich old white men sitting around in wine cellars tasting $1,000 bottles. But there are a lot of different spaces in this world. I’ve been in most of them.
Natural wine bars run by Paris/Brooklyn-coded hipsters where I don’t feel cool enough, somm tasting groups where I feel out of my depth in calling wines or giving tasting notes, dinners with folks who genuinely know their stuff but where I don’t feel wealthy enough, soirées of groupies who roll their eyes at you because you don’t know that producer, professional salons where I am complimented on my French but dismissed because I’m not a buyer or sommelier.
I firmly believe that wine should be fun and accessible, not intimidating and exclusive, and it’s one of the things I have struggled the most with since entering this industry some 6 years ago. After getting on the inside, I have found myself almost constantly bumping up against situations like those above, where I feel inadequate, unwelcome, or turned off by the culture.
What I love about wine, and what got me hooked in the first place, is its diversity. There is a wine for everyone, at every price point, for every occasion, from almost anywhere on the planet. Wine is an endless, ephemeral abyss that only grows in size and changes with each harvest. I will never know it all, and I would never pretend to even come close. It’s about perpetual discovery.
I have been lucky enough to taste some very rare, very old, and very expensive wines (sometimes overlapping, sometimes not). I am also perfectly happy to pop across the street to my neighborhood bistro and order a glass of Pays d’Oc Sauvignon Blanc for 7€. (I do have opinions on natural wines, as previously discussed, but let’s set that aside).
It has been challenging to find others who share this approach or “philosophy” when it comes to wine.
That is not to say I haven’t found anyone. Very importantly, I have met some people who share my passion for this world without being pretentious about it, whether they work in it or not. They have become my good friends and the people I admire most.
But I do feel like these other spaces dominate not only the public perception and conversation around wine, but the reality within it, and I hope some day that is no longer the case. (It is, ironically, one of the things I think natural wine is helping with.)
I recently went to the Paris launch event for Cha McCoy’s new book, Wine Pairing for the People, and listening to her talk about wine really resonated with me. She spoke about decentralizing Europe from the conversation, creating space for wine pairings with international foods, celebrating those cultures’ non-wine drinks, and having fun along the way. That’s the kind of space I want to be in.
I love sharing my knowledge about wine and all its intricacies with people – that’s my job, after all – but education shouldn’t be a precondition to enjoying wine, and it shouldn’t be a requirement that you know and/or have tasted and/or like certain wines to be considered a wine lover.
So if this resonates with you – if you’re someone who gets equally excited about tasting DRC as you do about Slovenian or Armenian or English or Chinese wines, reach out! I know there are more of us out there – let’s start that community where we can finally “fit in.”