Early in this journey a friend scolded me when I mused on running myself through the accepted sommelier’s training. His exact words escape me, but the phrase he coined stuck with me: “we already know you have great taste and the world doesn’t need more people talking about what is widely accepted as good taste – be the wine dissident that you are!”
This blog is, at least in part, a reaction to the unique snobbery that has built up around the wine industry. Admittedly, I’ve experienced this mostly in the United States, but have run into it in France, Switzerland, Spain, and as far afield as Vietnam. And I’m sick of it! I think most people are fed up with walking into their favorite wine shop and getting bombarded with infinite 87’s, 94’s, and 91’s obscuring the prices. Who decided that we need a hundred points to exactly pinpoint the merits of a wine, anyway? And what is the difference between an 89 wine and a 91 wine? Why, if I buy two 92 point wines, are they totally inconsistent in quality and value? And where are all the 70’s wines – surely such a wine is perfect for large parties and pizza-driven game days!
It’s all nonsense and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of paying $50 for a 94-point “beauty” only for it to get its butt kicked by the $17 unknown wine that I self-imported from Spain. I’m sick of long paragraphs comparing wines to flavors I’ve never even heard of! (And I’ve heard of a lot!) But mostly I’m sick of an approach to wine designed to render otherwise intelligent humans – who also own a tongue – utterly stupefied and overwhelmed at the prospect of navigating a wine list. I bet you are too!
Wine is not magic. Although, admittedly, there is some alchemy in the making of a great wine, there is little mystery in the tasting. Neither is it a science. A quick flip through any wine publication would have even the smartest professional thinking that they risk committing a sin punishable by death should they fail to apply proper tasting protocols with mathematical precision. Hogwash! Wine, like life and love, is a transcendent gift meant to be enjoyed by the masses. And each wine, like any lover, deserves a measure of care and attention unique only to it.
Another modern trend that this blog was designed to buck is crowd sourcing. Five minutes on Yelp!, Trip Advisor, or any similar platform will bring you to the same conclusion: reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about! Of course, that glowing five-star review of the only Thai place in Lyon might look grand, but what if it’s written by a seventeen-year-old exchange student whose only prior exposure to Thai cuisine is Pad Thai at the local Chinese carryout in Branson, Missouri? What if, like several friends of mine, price and convenience alone can earn you five stars? If you consider further, we already know what averaging out the taste preferences of the masses gets us: McDonalds, TGI Fridays, P.F. Chang’s, etc. That’s not what I’m looking for when I eat out.
At the same time that I’m sick of mass-market driven “foodie” nonsense, I’m also no fan of priggish food critics sashaying around Manhattan and Paris being prima donnas about details that I could care less about. I don’t need most of the flavor of a dish splashed around the rim of the plate in an artful Jackson Pollack sauce design. I do need clean plates, useable flatware, and a presentation that is minimally appetizing – as in no fried plates three shades of tan! But mostly I need flavor and the notion of value to not be entirely ignored. I don’t mind paying for a meal at all – on more than a few occasions curious dates have stared at me with saucer-eyes after seeing the bill. Yet, I do mind triple-digit bills that net me something your local mall could have achieved.
Where does that leave us? Think of us as your fun friend who always brings a good wine to dinner or is quick with the right restaurant suggestion for the right occasion. You will almost certainly not agree with us all the time. Hopefully, you will find these suggestions and reviews useful in navigating the crush of 4-star spots that pops up when you enter “restaurant near me” in your Maps App. Even better if you discover a spot you would have never otherwise located while browsing through the offerings herein. So, let’s have an adventure together, human friends!
Posto Novo 