You don’t like wine?

As a wine merchant, I particularly enjoy speaking at wine dinners and tastings. At the start of every session, I try to establish the likes and dislikes of the group I am speaking to.

Choice is not something we are short of in the world of wine; there are thousands of different options for you to taste before coming to any finite conclusions. Occasionally, someone will utter something along the lines of, “I tried wine once and I didn’t like it”. How politely I phrase the returning question depends on how belligerent I am feeling that day; how could you possibly write-off an entire category of drink from only one tasting?

Assuming that there is no adverse physiological angle to this, it takes a very special kind of genius to come to such a conclusion having only tried one wine. I know, from experience, that all our palates are tuned to different flavours and textures; one man’s meat, is another man’s poison after all, and life would certainly lose its richness if we all enjoyed the same thing. But it is this binary vision of wine that is troubling.

Often, the follow-up to the mono-sampler line is, “it all tastes like vinegar to me”. In the past, my competitive nature would kick in and I would avidly try to source something they would like. Sadly, my hard learned conclusion after years of experience, is that conversion would either take too long or be a completely futile task.

The other complaint I hear, just as frequently, is the saying; “anything but Chardonnay” or “ABC”. My concession is that, at the very least, those ABC-ers are open to a variation of wines with the exclusion of one grape.

For a wine drinker to conclude one particular grape is not for them is completely valid, I just urge them not to become entrenched in this view. I will always articulate that I am delighted they are engaging with wine, but to write-off the silky, creamy, textural elegance of a Meursault from the Côte-d’Or in Burgundy, just because they found a seven quid bottle of Aussie “a bit woody”, would be a crying shame.

So, if you are disregarding Dry-January this year, please keep on challenging your wine prejudices and preconceptions: I promise there are a plethora of wonderful choices waiting for you to taste.

Some “oldies” that are worth a second look –

Soave:

Pieropan Soave Classico 2019, Italy @ £20.99 per bottle from Majestic Wine Warehouses

Muscadet:

Champteloup Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Loire, France 75cl @ £6.99 from Waitrose.com

Chardonnay:

Woodstock Deep Shiraz, McLaren Vale, Australia @ £12.99 from KWM wine.com