The Birth of a Wine Snob
Drink this wine…it is a Merlot.
I will be the first to admit that when I moved to South Africa, I knew fokol about wine. In fact, the total of my wine knowledge could be summed up as follows:
There’s red, white, and pink.
I liked red better than the other two.
Red goes with steak.
White wine gives me heartburn.
Wine is for drinking.
I was also pretty sure that all the different varietals was simply a scam being pulled on us by “Big Wine” to make us think there was a difference between a merlot, a shiraz, and a cabernet. The talk of “tasting notes” and “bouquet” was just bunk.
Oh, was I ever wrong.
It’s taken me about a year to unlearn everything I thought I knew and start to learn more about the beauty that is wine.
Wait…there’s a difference?
Confession - I had no idea the name of the wine came from the type of grape. Yeah, I knew that little.
Me…a year ago….
In the US, at least in my experience, going to wine tastings and wine parings isn’t as ‘normal’ an activity. Perhaps in Napa Valley it is, but everywhere else, generally, not a thing. Here, though, it’s as common as going to the store for milk and bread...and living in Stellenbosch, there is no shortage of wine farms to visit.
The first part of my education was that not only is there a difference between the varietals, but there’s also a difference in between wine farms for the same varietal. I still don’t get the whole “how the soil/geography changes the profile” thing, but just the fact that I notice a difference is a huge leap forward.
The first time I noticed this, even if it didn’t stick, was November 2021 when we were on the Wine Tram in Franschhoek when we visited Atlas Swift. They specialize in chardonnay and their wines come from very distinctly different regions of the Western Cape. I do remember that each one was uniquely different from the other and that Kim and I had differing opinions on which one we liked best.
Somehow that learning just evaporated from my brain until the last two or three months. What can I say, I’m a slow learner.
I’ve also learned the difference between wooded and unwooded wines, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc in particular, and my preference really depends on what day it is. Some days I’ll like a sharper, crisper wine (unwooded), while other days the smooth, buttery, vanilla-y goodness of a wooded wine just hits the spot.
Some of the other things I’ve learned over the last year are:
Chenin Blanc is my favorite white, although Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier are not far behind.
I like my unwooded Chenin to have that ‘green apple’ or ‘pear’ taste to it. It’s a bit more refreshing.
Shiraz is my favorite red, and I prefer the more ‘peppery’ ones.
Cinsault and Grenache are close behind.
I’m beginning to learn how to tell the difference between a “young” wine and one that’s ready to drink.
Pinks are great, and I prefer the “different” ones.
Here, most of the pinks are made from Pinotage grapes…and there are some really good ones. I’m just finding that I prefer the Malbec/Merlot, Grenache/Cinsault pinks.
Blends, done well, can sometimes be better than the single varietals.
I’m still not a fan of ‘bubbles’, or MCC. There’s been one or two that are tolerable, but for me, they’re too sharp and the yeast-y aroma is just a turn-off.
No longer as much of a wine ‘heathen’.
I’m learning that wine is to be savored, not gulped down like you’ve just found water after a week in the desert.
I’m learning that there are ‘everyday wines’, like the ones you have after a work day hanging out with my wife on the balcony watching the sunset or getting my ass kicked in Scrabble or Upwords.
When I first moved here, and to some extent still today, I do the conversion from rand to dollar when we’re out at a wine farm. For the most part, I’m still ok with paying up to R150 (~$8 US) for a bottle of wine, particularly if it’s a nice one. In the US, outside of ‘two buck chuck’ or maybe a bottle of Barefoot, you can’t really get a decent wine for that price. As I think about it while writing this, I think that might have been the root of my issues with wine…that a decent bottle could be so danged expensive.
Recently, though, Kim pointed out that I had a ‘lightbulb moment’.
We were at a tasting and the first two wines were Chenin Blancs. Now, I love Chenin and I’ve also found that it is very difficult to find a bad Chenin. In fact, I’ve only ever found one, and that’s a mistake I won’t make again.
As we were tasting the wine, I remarked that they were kind of flat, even the wooded one. I looked at her and said “I wouldn’t pay R200 for this. Not even close.”
That’s when she pointed out the ‘lightbulb moment’ that, compared to a year ago, I’ve gained a little discernment not only in my taste, but also in the value of the wine we’re tasting. In general, I now look at the cost of a bottle differently.
R50-R100 ($3-$5) - Normal ‘everyday wine’.
R100-R150 ($5-$8) - Food wines…ones you save for a meal.
>R150 (>$8) - Special occasion wines.
Now, if you look around our house, we have dozens of bottles of wine of all varietals and all prices.
We have wine racks over the cabinets which hold the “special occasion” wines or wines that can and should sit a couple years before they’re ready to drink. These are the ones we joke that I’m not allowed to touch.
We have another rack that’s for our drinkable reds…with the rows segregated by varietal.
We also have our ‘everyday wine’ stored, with the whites and pinks in the garage fridge, so there’s always a chilled bottle or three ready at the end of the day.
We’ve also started cataloging our wines, so we know what we have, when we got it, what we thought of it, and how much it cost.
I laugh that we have so much wine, but Kim says with the number of bottles we have, we’re officially ‘collectors’.
Works for me!
I’m a Learning Module…
Food and wine are such a big part of life here, and I feel like I’m only scratching the surface. I feel like a kid that’s just learned there’s a whole, big world outside ready to be explored.
So, one of our next adventures is a wine course. Another one will be taking a 2-4 bottles of a single varietal to Mom’s house and having a tasting where we can learn from her experience as well.
We also agreed that we’re going to do just simple tastings. Kim thinks those will be good for both of us to keep learning. I dare say we’ve learned more from simple tastings over the last year than we learned from the pairings. It’s the tastings where we learned about Viognier, Cinsault, Grenache, and other ‘uncommon’ varietals.
I’m looking forward to learning all I can about wine. It’s been really eye-opening experiencing what good wine really is.
Sorry America - most of your wines are plonk.
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