About Me

I have a difficult relationship with wine. I never quite enjoyed wine when I was young because I never understood wine. Why do people act all noble and intellectual when they are having a discussion over this fancy alcoholic beverage called wine? I then came to realize the worst of human nature manifested itself when these intellectuals is discussing the actual wine that they are having in their glasses.

When I got older and started to dine out a bit more, the wine menu always intimidated me. It was like written in another language, figuratively speaking and most of the time literally as well. I started got pretty good at faking it, ordering a wine that sounds good. I heard that never order the cheapest but a random mid-priced bottle that sounds good when you try to pronounce whatever language it is written in, in your head.

Then at some point, I started to drink a lot of champagne at night clubs. I question why does a bottle of champagne costs so much. To my ignorance, it is not the champagne but the clubs that are having a mark-up of 500% or more! That means a $50 bottle of champagne can costs you up to $300 in a nightclub. I figured at that point, a bottle of champagne is not about the wine at a place like a nightclub but what it signifies. It signifies celebration. It signifies prestige. It signifies good times. It got me thinking wine is not only an alcoholic beverage but carries a much deeper meaning to the consumer. It works not only your sensory senses but physiologically with the alcohol and psychologically as well.

I then started to dig deeper into champagne. It was then that I actually really wanted to understand what I am drinking. What is so special about champagne after all. Then as the saying goes, the rest is history. The more you dig, the more you want to know, the more you want to know, the more you want to drink and try what you’ve learnt.

What about wine snobs?

As I got into dining out a bit more, my strategy in ordering wine from the wine list only got me so far. I started going to restaurants that have someone called a Sommelier. Who is this guy/girl who seems to know every single wine in the wine list? He/she will ask, “is there any particular wine or varietal that you like?” In my head, I can no longer say, “well, whichever one that sounds good and doesn’t break the bank please.” I started to think how to answer him/her or is his sole reason to be there is to ridicule me if say something stupid like “that bottle sounds good.”

In fact, I did say that once and picked a wine because of how it sounds. It was an Italian Pinot Nero from the Alto Adige DOC at a really nice Italian restaurant. I remember there were a couple of bottles and one producers sounds German. Is another story to tell as to why I picked the German producer but that is for another time. In fact, most people in Alto Adige speaks German and at some point in history there was a huge migration from Germany to this region in Italy. The point is wine is all about clues. How would anyone in the world know and tried every single wine produced in the world from every single vintage? But what we could do is use clues to make educated guesses which most of the time is correct.

If you were a friend of mine that evening when I’ve ordered the Pinot Nero from Alto Adige, and you heard me trying to explain to you why I’ve ordered that wine, do you think I am a wine snob? I don’t think so because I told you I wanted to try this wine based on an educated guess. I picked a wine that I thought might have some history to the producer with a German name. I can never be a wine snob because a wine snob will tell you exactly why he picked that wine and wine it is superior to all other wines in the list and they might have nothing to back it up by. A wine snob thinks they know everything in wine and what is best bar none but no one can know everything in wine. It is truly a journey of a lifetime and more to learn about wine. Every wine has its character. It might not be your taste but it might be for others. A $10 wine doesn’t mean it is a bad wine. Not every $1000 bottles wine is a world class wine. A wine is made from grapes grown in the vineyards. It takes 365days and more to make a bottle of wine from the vines growing to harvesting to ageing and bottling. It’s about respect for the wine you drink no matter if it is something you dislike or something you like. This is what separates a wine snob from a wine enthusiast or even a connoisseur in wine. Yes, it might sound trivial but when you meet enough wine “enthusiasts” out there you will start to meet some truly wine snobs.

Back to the Sommelier, I never really enjoyed talking to a sommelier. I find most of them being a snob. Maybe it is just me or the way they present themselves in the restaurant. Of course they know so much about wine as it is their passion and profession and I could learn so much from them. But my theory is that they’ve met too many customers that thinks they know their stuff aka the wine snob so subsequently they too took on this attitude. In particular restaurant settings, people order particular wines and even bring their own prized bottles from home. They realized people are quite shallow at times and only drink a bottle that could show their business partner or friends how much they know about wine. In fact, those who order obscure bottles know much more about wine than those who order the most prestigious bottle on the wine list.

I could easily order a Super Tuscan or a Barolo or a Brunello di Montalcino to impress my friends at the Italian restaurant but I did not. I also need to mention the drone video I took when I visited beautiful Puligny-Montrachet one July. As we know, the vineyards here produce one of the best Chardonnays in the world. Although, I always try to find a good bottle of Pinot Noirs here. I am weird. All the wine snobs will be frowning on me and shaking their heads.

I started this page to log down my feelings and journey in wine. Even in a couple of years that I’ve really started to learn more about wine, my perception towards wine has already changed. I believe it would continue to evolve as I drink and try different wines across the world. Wine is truly a magnificent item that showcase the history and changing climate of the world. I hope you too will enjoy this journey with me no matter how far you are in yours. I hope we will all share and learn from each other. Cheers to a lifetime of leaning and drinking!