Not Every Wine Is for Every Person Every Day

Recently. I had an interesting E-Mail exchange with one of our most educated customers.  He had heard that a particular wine was not “beautiful” and wanted to know if he should buy it.  I thought about it and replied that 1) the wine was not particularly beautiful and 2) whether or not he should buy it depended on whether or not what was good about the wine was something that would be useful to him at some point in the next 5 years.

Not every wine that I sell is dense, balanced, aromatic and $25 dollars. 

And you know what?  While I do have tons of my wines in my cellar that are masterfully dense and
at the same time gloriously beautifully aromatic, I don’t want to drink them every day.

Drinking a wine with that level of breeding is a wine experience.  And you know what?  Even Lyle Fass Mr. Wine Geek himself does not want a Wine Experience every day. 
Some days I’ve made a dish I’m particularly proud of and just want something to pair really well with it.  I don’t want the distraction of a wine of Beethovenian complexity.
Some days I have some simple food and just want to knock back a really fruity delicious wine like a Rosso di Montalcino or a nicely fruited Bourgogne Rouge or a fruity St. Joseph.
Some days I entertain people who are not uber wine geeks and I want a wine that is easy to drink and obvious.

Certainly, some days, I’m in the mood to geek out with a serious bottle and do open a Grand Cru wine costing $70+.  But that is not every day.

The other point that I’d like to make is while I do have a ton of wine at the top of each category I sell, I can appreciate the “lesser” wines.  I understand what the winemakers are trying to accomplish and can appreciate that they have accomplished that.  So if a winemaker is trying to make a $25 bottle of St. Joseph that is deliciously fruited but not an aromatic masterpiece, I can appreciate that achievement.  Not every wine is Gonon and you know what?  Gonon is $100 and impossible to get.  Not everyone can afford to drink Gonon and even if they could (and could source enough to drink every day) they shouldn’t for the reasons I’ve listed above. 

A final point is that not every wine is for every person.  I have a 1er Chassagne Morgeots that is one of my favorite wines in the world.  A very good customer asked if I should buy it and I advised against it because he had told me in the past that his palate was not that sensitive and he liked fruit-driven wines (which this was not).  I also have wines that are much more fruit-driven that are more up his alley.  I have Champagnes that the Champagne Geeks find boring and I have Geek Champagnes that some people find less approachable.  I have Cru Beaujolais that are powerful enough to compete with the top Northern Rhone Syrahs and I have old school carbonic Bojos that appeal to people who like those.

Fortunately, I have a good relationship with my customers and know what to sell to whom.  But not every wine is for every person. 

And you know what?  That’s just 100.00% fine.  Because not every wine is for every person every day.