Back in the late 90s’, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, who wrote a wine column for the Wall Street Journal called ‘Tastings’, invented the “Open That Bottle Night”, encouraging their readers to open a symbolically significant bottle any night of the week, for any reason. The idea was that, generally, a ‘special’ bottle should be shared and consumed rather than reserved and venerated. This idea/event has lived on beyond the column, which ended in 2009, and is now, paradoxically, celebrated during the last week in February. It should be celebrated any/every day.
I’d like to propose a similar idea, which I’ll call ‘Drink a Different Wine Night’.
We’re becoming a culture of wine drinkers, nearly tripling our wine consumption over the past 50 years. But in doing so, I worry than our tastes are become ossified…we’re becoming less willing to adapt and change simply for the sake of change. And in wine, which, great frankly, is of little importance, variety is exciting, thrilling and leads us into entirely new directions, sometimes even back to where we started.
The world of wine is bigger, and I’ll argue, better than ever before. There are more wineries, more vineyards, more regions, more winemakers and more diversity than was ever thought likely. Wines are going both backwards and forwards in time; natural, non-interventionist wines are making a comeback (no, they are not new) while modern, additive-enhanced, mass-produced wines are dominating some markets. Science and technology has revamped the business of making wine (often in the most traditional wine regions; yeah I’m talking to you, Bordeaux) yet very old-school practices (organic, biodynamic, dry-farming, etc.) are the norm in most wine regions. And while consolidation (and the resulting homogenization) is very much an ongoing development, more and more small, independent producers are crafting interesting, unique and appealing wines from lesser known grape varietals.
So, why not try something different? Exclusively drinking Cabernet or Chardonnay doesn’t really paint you as you as much of a wine aficionado or connoisseur, and let’s face it, rosé was cutting edge 20 years ago. Now it’s pretty much mainstream. What have you got to lose? Delight the neighbors! Amaze your kids! Impress your spouse! Drink a different wine…tonight!