Hello loyal readers. My, how fast the weeks go by with nary a blog post. Nary, I tell you. A little word of advice to all the aspiring winetrepreneurs out there: Do not attempt to launch a wine brand three months before your wedding. Well, unless you’ve hired one of those Hollywood wedding planners who takes care of every detail down to the little ribbons tied onto the little flags tied onto the the ends of hors d’oeuvre toothpicks hand painted to match your gown.
But that’s not actually what I wanted to talk about today. I’ve been thinking a lot about personal taste again and feeling very passionately that it’s time to shift our thinking when it comes to wine. I’ll warn you now that this could get a little emotional.
A huge part of what drove me to start a wine brand was that almost all of my friends (people of all ages and genders) had spoken to me about feeling self conscious about ordering wine in restaurants, picking out bottles in the store, and (most frequently) not tasting hints of black raspberry and freshly tanned leather in their glass. They all seemed to have developed a strange fear of Wine Judgment, which, I’m pretty sure, had never actually unleashed its snobby wrath on these poor trembling souls. And I should know; I’m one of them! Or at least I was.
Somewhere around the time when Je Suis was blossoming into a drinkable reality, I started thinking about what we taste, how we describe what we taste, and why the heck that makes us all so afraid. It’s no fun to worry about what we’re supposed to be drinking, I thought. Wouldn’t it make more sense to embrace the fact we each taste differently and to describe our taste experience in terms of where the wine takes us? Which images and memories it conjures? What kind of personality we imagine it to assume?
In vino veritas, people! Not in vino metus! [That's fear in Latin. I had to look it up.] In wine you discover the ultimate truth: what distinguishes your taste buds and your imagination from the sniffing, swishing dude sitting next to you.
Now, I want to be clear that I highly respect the precise science and the beautiful art of winemaking. Some wines are better than others. (Je Suis is better than them all.) And developing your taste for wine can open those same old taste buds to more colorful, complex experiences. But, I believe that it is impossible to truly appreciate the labors of the winemakers and to realize the full potential of a wine without relaxing, enjoying, and accepting that whatever you taste cannot. be. wrong.
Something to think about next time you’re faced with a wine list. Of course, the easiest way to guarantee that you will love the wine you pick is to always drink Je Suis Wine.
