Waiter, there's an ice cube in my chardonnay.
One of the things about wine drinking is it seems to come with a lot of seemingly rigid rules.
White wine, white meat. Red wine, red meat. Swirl the glass. Not that glass. Sniff the wine. No, that wine is too cold. Never before midday. Alright already! It’s just a drink.
During a recent discussion on wine enjoyment a story was shared of a Sommelier who told a customer “you’re drinking the wine wrong” when they expressed a flavour characteristic could be found in the wine that the Somm didn’t agree with. Apart from being a bit bloody condescending, surely the beauty of wine is that we all experience it slightly differently.
But if you can drink wine wrong, then how do you drink wine right?
Perhaps the friendly thing to do here is replace the word ‘rule’ with ‘guidance’. Most of these emphatic statements around wine appreciation have good intentions. They’re generally about trying to ensure you get the best out of your cab sauv. But weirdly it can often be these well-meaning guidelines that put the wank right back into wine and intimidate the bejeezus out of us. It’s no wonder we’ve turned to drinking vodka in a can.
The actor Cameron Diaz has her own wine label called Avaline. Out of curiousity, I spent some time on her website and Instagram when she first launched and if I’m honest, it was because I expected the premise to be another celebrity band-wagon bullshit extra-buck side biz affair with absolutely no substance.
While I do wish some of these celebrities would just leave the winemaking to the winemakers, a notion that I will immediately contradict but stating that really anyone should be allowed to have a crack, I was pleasantly surprised by the way Cameron and her business partner and drinking buddy, Stephanie Powers dipped their pedicured toes into the vino pond.
Avaline touts itself as a ‘clean wine’. That’s a bit markety lingo jingo for me but essentially means the wine is organic and made without any random additives. That’s a good thing. But what really got me on side was a little brand vid Cam and her pal put together where they outlined how they like to drink their wine. Cam likes to pop a wee cube of ice into her white or rosé and Stephanie went so far as to admit, in public, on the record, out loud even, that she adds fruit like mixed berries to her wine.
I can hear the eyes of every winemaker rolling in collective disapproval.
But what’s the problem? I don’t think there is one and in that moment I sort of fell in love with Cam, Steph and their girl Avaline even though I’ve not tasted the wine and probably never will. Right there, in that single little passing moment, these two women gave millions of us permission to enjoy our wine the way we want to.
I love wine but I do suffer from headaches (in general). Rather than enjoy a glass or two swiftly followed with a nurofen chaser, a white wine spritzer will do nicely thank you.
It does depend on the wine for me — I’m not a murderer! But if I haven’t spent too much money on the wine and the wine is a more robust, structured affair to start with then I don’t hesitate to pour a mix that consists of 2/3 wine and 1/3 sparkling antipodes water or perhaps one of the lightly flavoured Almighty sparkling waters (the Almighty blood orange sparkling is trés magnifique when making a spritzer from a rosé).
The guidance that wine experts provide is valuable and absolutely helps you get the very best out of a wine. It is important to remember that this is one drink that isn’t just busted out to a recipe where ingredients are brought into a production plant. Making wine is a time consuming pursuit and there are many months (sometimes years) hundreds of hours, many many people and a lot of mother nature’s nurture behind every single glass made so yeah - respect the rules/guidelines but in order to keep all of our wineries in business, we need to want to buy the wine. If that means you want to drink the wine your way then get stuck in. If that means you pop an ice cube in your chardy or heck even some raspberries in your riesling, then go for it. It’s not what they say it is. It’s what you say it is which really means there is no ‘wrong way’ to experience your wine. I reckon a winemaker might prefer to know you happily buy their wine and drink it the way you want. Rather that, than you don’t buy their wine at all.
I’ll raise a tumbler to breaking rules and listen to some Ned Flanders inspired death metal shenangins while I’m at it.
we’re super grateful to our pals at antipodes water company. they supply us with the good water for our chats. antipodes is an artesian water that contains no chemicals, and when you’re pouring an organic wine that is gold. the mineral content also keeps the palate fresh so you can taste the wine the way the winemaker and nature intended you to. thanks antipodes, you’re the bomb. antipodes.co.nz
