Becoming A Wine W@#ker

What is it about wine that captures the imagination more than other alcoholic drinks? Why do people spend thousands of pounds on bottles of wine never to taste a drop? Why do those who have a little knowledge about wine become in the eyes of laymen 'wine wankers'?

You know the type. Untucked gingham shirt open at the neck, linen jacket crumpled to just the right level of shabby chic. Denim jeans suitably aged and distressed. Brown brogues which have never seen a tin of polish. Usually out to lunch on a Sunday afternoon at the local gastropub ordering the wine for the table espousing the gorgeous, luscious blackfruit. The hint of liquorice, with a slap of wet leather. The bold, grippy tannins and superb length. You've all seen them. You've all thought it haven't you? 'Wine wanker'. You've committed the image to memory and sworn you'd never be one of those. You'll stick to the lager, ale, house wine and be damned for doing so.

That was me 20 years ago. Drinking cooking lager. Scoffing at those idiots ordering the Claret with their seared steaks and duck fat fried chips. 'Yeah, you can keep your Claret mate! I'll stick with the Australian dish water'. Drinking ice cold liquid which tastes of nothing. Back to 2022 and tonight I'm heading out to a wine school to taste six wines. Old world versus new world. Syrah against Shiraz. Primitivo against Zinfandel. Chardonnay against, well, Chardonnay. What changed in the intervening years? Why have I travelled along the spectrum of lager lout to wine wanker? How did I become that which I despised?

It's a story which starts in the 1970's. Spending the summer holidays with my parents in a renovated and patched up second hand caravan travelling through France. Watching my father buying cheap wine by the gallon in plastic water containers, dispensed from what can only be described as a petrol hose connected to a water bowser. It's the 1980s and Christmas begins with my mother chilling a bottle of Asti Spumante to go with the turkey. It's the bottle of Black Tower which was taken from its protective packaging of army boots as I slept in a hanger with other soldiers waiting for a flight from Germany back to the UK. It's the 1990s and carafe after carafe of cheap Rose wine on a beautiful Greek island had me waking up fully clothed in the shower the next morning wondering how I got there. It's the 2000s and as I moved through my 30s life started to change. I found myself divorced. Friends and work colleagues came and went as I threw myself at the treadmill of work. On the way home I would stop off at the supermarket to buy a bottle of red from the bottom shelf. I'd started to change.

Why not a bottle of lager? I don't really know. Perhaps to breakaway from what I thought was the old me? The old life. Move on, change your perspective. Or maybe it was just that wine had always been there in the background. An ever present shadow looming over the beer glass. I started to think about wine in a different way. Not just an alcoholic drink which tasted like wine. I watched those wine wankers and thought, is there something I'm missing when it comes to wine? I'd watched Oz Clarke and Jilly Goolden on TV. I liked the way they democratised wine. On one hand they made wine a complex mix of aromas and flavours and on the other, something fun which the ordinary bloke in the street could understand without being ashamed that they actually knew something about a Rhone or a Burgundy. I'd also been a big fan of Keith Floyd and really, really wanted to be him.

I'd noticed that I was cooking more French and Spanish food at home. More food with wine as an ingredient. More food where a sharp, crisp white would complement the fatty pork cassoulet. Where a rich, fruity red would complement a plate of serrano ham. I'd noticed that the wine he'd use wasn't the cheap three for five pound nondescript french white. It was a Burgundian Puligny Montrachet. It was a Loire Valley Chenin Blanc. It was wine I'd never heard of. I started hunting them out at the supermarket. My wine taste moved from the three pound bracket to the seven pound bracket and boy did it make a difference.

At that time I didn’t understand why it made a difference, it just did (more about that in a future post). Like most people I’d assumed the more expensive wines were for the wine wankers who had more money than sense. I’d never dream of spending upwards of thirty pounds on a bottle of wine in a restaurant. I, like many others, chose the cheapest or second cheapest wine on the menu but my taste was changing. A shift in style here, a move in price there. A South American or New Zealand Chardonnay. A Spanish Albarino. French Pinot de Picpoul. New wines, new tastes, I was slowly but surely becoming a wine wanker searching for untried domains and producers. Looking for something with more zest, more zing, more complexity. That’s when I became a wine wanker. When I realised I'd crossed the rubicon. When I understood what that gingham wearing, shabby chic tosser meant when he referred to complexity in the wine.

That was early 2010, I was in a well known wine bar in London and I’d earned my wine wanker wings. Moving quickly to today, I’ve studied with the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), gaining my level 3 qualification in wine. I’ve been a wine tourist in Argentina, France, Greece, Spain, Italy. I’m proud of the journey I’ve been on to become a wine wanker. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the wine world. I’m broadening my horizons. Give it a go, maybe you’ll be proud to be a wine wanker too.