Welcome to the first Wine Philosophy Friday, where we’ll be discussing how people perceive wine and it’s culture.  That’s it, nothing complicated, just a simple topic discussion focused on the encompassing ideas about how wine is thought about by people.

For example, for a [relatively] long period of time, wine was perceived as something that only the rich and snooty, the sorts of people that owned monocles and butlers.  These individuals drank chateau awesome-de-placeinFrance, vintage ’52 in the back of their Rolls Royce, on their way to their private pool full of caviar, and wouldn’t be caught dead with a straw basket of chianti (which arguably was a good idea).  The wine growing world in this period of time really did favor these individuals, wine quality from Spain and Italy revolved around quantity not quality, and the wines showed it.  New Zealand didn’t exist in anyones mind as a place to grow wine.  Australia still was having a love affair with ‘stickies’, very sweet wines mostly for local consumption.  California was just becoming even considered a good wine producer after the events “The Judgment of Paris”.  If you wanted to drink wine, you went snooty, French / German, and that was it unless you knew something about wine, and were lucky enough to import it to whatever country you lived in.  While there are some of these hyper rich snobby people left, they’re becoming an increasingly rare breed in the wine world.

After all, wine is supposed to be enjoyed and fun.

The new face of wine is becoming increasingly young, and they’re not going to be constrained to the same grapes as their parents.   They no longer are going to be impressed by what grows in Burgundy, and don’t get flush with excitement over Mouton Rothschild’s latest great vintage.  They’re trending away from oak, and towards natural unoaked chardonnays, unusual varietals like Albariño, Gewürtztraminer, Carmenère, and Viognier.  Poor Zinfandel is finally being allowed to keep it’s skin, and make the big, juicy, spicy, chunky ripe fruit flavored wines that it can show at it’s best, instead of overly sweet rosés.   In a way this generation is particularly concerned with sourcing and integrity of wine, with movement toward sustainable, orgainic, and biodynamic wines.

Most importantly though, it has to be affordable.  As one column recently put it, $15 is the new $25, and most people don’t even want to pay more than $10.

Do big, expensive wines still have a place? Absolutely.  Do wine reviews still help consumers (even if they are a bit stuffy)? Yes!  Do wine ratings really mean anything? Sorta, but not really.  It’s all of this that makes it such a great time to be learning about and enjoying wine.

All of that is just a snap shot though of where wine came from and a hint of where it’s going.  What’s more interesting is when people place new ideas into the wine world.  So here’s an invitation.  Send us an email through our contact page [or if you disagree, leave a comment!].  Tell us what you think of wine, and where you want to see it go, and perhaps even get your own Wine Philosophy Friday write up!

Until next Friday, happy drinking everyone, get out there and try some wine!