Fear of Wine

There are many reasons to shy away from buying a bottle of wine in a shop like D. Schulers. The 10 thousand bottles in the market to try to choose from is just one of them – it’s simply overwhelming. Cost, unpronounceable words, obscure regions of foreign countries are also parts of the anxiety of picking the WRONG bottle to buy. Just opening a bottle with a corkscrew can be scary AF the first dozen times you use one.

What often happens is that you fall in love with a glass of wine at a restaurant. Another time you might be touring the Leelanau peninsula, stop in to a local winery on a lark and taste something spectacular. Maybe you’re at a party at a friend’s house and they pour a glass for you and the heavens part, the angels sing, etc. You fall in love with a wine and just have to find that exact bottle to try to recreate that experience. It’s gotta be that particular bottle because that’s the first and only wine that you really flipped out over. We see this behavior almost every day and even though you took a picture of the label and know exactly what you’re looking for, you might leave the store unsatisfied because that wine is not available or not in stock on the shelves. We can always order something special for you if it’s available to our distributors in Michigan. But understand that the human response of the “angels singing” while tasting something is heavily influenced by where you are in that moment and who you’re with. Maybe you just got a raise or had a hot date. Leelanau is freaking beautiful. The French call this effect “en place.” Your joyful human sensory experience is strongly correlated to your place in the moment.

There is another way of almost finding that same wonderful wine experience. You should know that every Cabernet Sauvignon tastes perhaps 90% like any other bottle of Cabernet. Sancerre tastes like Sancerre. Riesling is Riesling. A bottle of Chianti from one producer tastes very similar to any other good producer provided the wine is made correctly. If you have a picture of the label we can see the wine that you fell in love with is from X part of the world, made from Y grape and in the Z price range. I’m not stating that a $10 bottle tastes exactly like a $100 bottle but the similarities of apples to apples might surprise you. There’s only one way to find out though. Taste it!

The other complicating factor in tasting new wines is the shock of alcohol on your tongue. Maybe you just brushed your teeth with Colgate before you drank that Chardonnay. Maybe you still have peanut butter on your breath. Maybe you just had a Manhattan and then switched to wine at dinner. That first sip is always a shock to your sensory system - it’s not ready to switch gears all of a sudden. The second sip starts to make sense to your monkey brain. You can’t really judge on the first sip as you’re not ready to make that assessment. The second mouthful of wine is when your senses start to catch up with what’s happening on your tongue. Again, this applies to any beer or cocktail as you first taste - don’t jump to conclusions until after the second taste. 

To take a chance on a bottle of wine when there is no guarantee that you’ll enjoy takes a leap of faith. You should try regardless as practice makes perfect! Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes several bottles of trial and error to really hone-in on what you do like to drink. If it were genuinely a lousy wine or poorly made it would not be on the shelves at Schulers, period. This is the same advice (keep trying) I would give to someone just starting out with beer or Tequila (or coffee for that matter). No two people have the same taste preferences which is why there are 10 thousand bottles. This bottle or that bottle is maybe not right for you but someone else will totally flip out while tasting it. I know many people who have found their wine groove with just a little patience and persistence. 

Cheers,
Eric