On Evolution of Personal Wine Tastes

In much of Europe, people learn about wine at relatively young ages. Now, we're not talking the absolute trash that many American high schoolers have experimented with and gotten sick from, we're talking local table wine. So, they learned about wine often as whatever was local. But, in the US, wine -- real wine, that is -- was for most of us an entirely different story.

For young adults in the US who first experiment legally with wine, typically they start with something inexpensive. They'll go to a store and look at the wines (often in the less than $10 grouping) and look for an attractive bottle or a catchy name. And, what will likely attract them to the wine itself, as compared to the name or the bottling, is something that drinks easy and perhaps exciting. 

So, wehre do they start? For at least a generation, the normal starting point, at least among traditional wine grapes -- vitis vinifera -- was Chardonnay. In recent years, while Chardonnay is still a popular starting point, some of that Chardonnay business has gone to Moscato.

What do these wines have in common other than the single digit price points that are attractive? Not a whole lot from a technical wine standpoint, but both are what my wife describes as easy drinking. In the case of Chardonnay, the cheaper varieties tend to have a soft mouth feel. They are not very acidic and whether they got it naturally or artificially (artificial is much more common in the under $10 grouping), the often have a buttery or creamy mouth feel. They feel soft in your mouth. And, with so many of them being particularly oaky (often from having oak chips submerged in a vat with them), newer Chardonnay drinkers in the US often develop an affinity for oak.

Moscato, in the very inexpensive appearances, is different. Sweet and fruity, it's also very easy drinking. It reminds the drinker of Kool-Aid, Hi-C, and very fruity mixed drinks. And, being far lower in alcohol content than those drinks, often served way too cold, and coming from bottles that look exciting, Moscato becomes a wine that just gets you happy quickly.

Eventually, wine drinkers evolve. At least some of them do. I did, although my real avolution didn't start until I was well into what my son would describe as middle-aged (I would prefer to refer to that age as just some older version of 39). I branched out and I found that some wines that I had previously not taken any particular liking to actually enhanced food. This was an entirely new concept to me. I didn't know why this was the case, but I saw it happening. I found that big, bold reds went with steak and that white wines I had never considered before went better with most fish.

The more I tried, the more my tastes evolved, but I still didn't know why. What I learned were the effects of acidity on food and that more acidic wines are often more food-friendly. They can certainly complement a much wider variety of food. I learned that Chardonnay does not go with everything ... not even close. As time went by, and I tried more and more combinations, I began to understand food and wine pairings. I found out that chemistry matters and there was a time that I knew something about chemistry. So, I went back and dusted off some of the old chemistry knowledge and found that when it related to things I enjoy (food and wine, for example), suddenly being useful, chemistry was cool (I had given up on the concept of chemistry being cool at some point in the 70s when "backside attacks" in organic reactions seemed like my professor's idea of a chemistry joke).

Once I understood that every wine has the ability to be good in some way, everything made more sense to me. I tried grapes and wines that I had never had before, or even more unusually that I had had and disliked, but I tried them with food. And not just any food, but foods with which they would have a sort of symbiotic relationship. 

And, then I learned about terroir. Terroir dramatically affects wines. And, then I found that this grape I once thought was horrible and that I didn't understand at all (Pinot Noir) because virtually all of the bottlings of that grape I had ever had were overly light and without real character) actually is so very affected by the terroir and the abilities of the winemaker. And, I found that it goes with almost everything. 

At this point, if you say you are serving me whatever I want and I don't have to pay for it, I still have my preference in styles. It might or might not be the same as yours. I am a fan of tannins. They don't need to be overly rough and dense and cause your pucker to pucker over and over again, but I like tannins. But, I also like gentle white wines and the serentiy of a great dessert wine, and the racy acidity of Sangiovese-based wines and ... well, if they are well made, I like them all now.

And, that is how an American wine drinker evolved in ... cough, cough ... middle age.