White Whine

The Wedding Reception

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a distant cousin’s Wedding recently, when having finally made it to the reception, an impeccably presented waiter approached our table with a chattering  tray of glasses and a couple of bottles of wine (always my favourite part).

“Would you like the red or the white sir” he enquired, as I flicked a quick glance down at the menu.

“White for me my good man…” I replied triumphantly, feeling cheerful and cushioned by the half a dozen cold beers I’d already enjoyed in the late afternoon sun.

“And for you Madam” he directed to the severely manicured socialite sitting directly to my left.

“Oh…” the young lady replied, somewhat dismissively. “Red for me.”

“I don’t drink white wine…horrible stuff…” she explained to no-one in particular, glancing sideways at the bottle of Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos the waiter was holding with a disapproving scowl.

“No white wine at all?” I enquired.

“None...” she replied. “It gives me Gas”

“Ohh…” I said. “How terribly unfortunate for you”

No White?

Strange as it may seem to all of us in The Guzzle fraternity, there are actually people who simply do not like to drink white wine at all. I know, shocking isn’t it!

I’m not talking about people who have an affliction to consuming NZ Sauvignon Blanc (let’s face it, who doesn’t), or an adversity to overtly sweet Riesling or warm Champagne. I’m talking about people who, for no obvious reason other than their own misguided prejudice, have forsaken all wine that is not coloured red (or at the very least slightly pink).

Are they wine-ist? Are they ill-advised food critics? Are they insane?

Don’t they know what they’re missing out on?

Wine, like everything good in life, is about balance. It’s about harmony. It’s about the sum of all parts working together as one.

No one is seriously suggesting that you can have good without evil or love without hate. And where would Yogi be without BooBoo, or the Captain be with out Tennille? No where I tells ya, no where…

A world full of Yin, without any Yang, is just plain wrong! We all need contrast in our lives. Some shit to balance the sure things in life. It’s what makes us who we are…and without it we are nothing.

And yet, in the face of all this brilliant analysis some people steadfastly refuse to even consider letting a drop of white wine pass their lips.

What is the world coming to? Why is this so?

Here’s my theory…*

Don’t believe everything you read

For many, many years, until quite recently, white wine was dealt a pretty shonky hand when it came to marketing and truth in labelling. All over the world bulk wine was sold to consumers as Riesling, Chablis, or White Burgundy when it was nothing of the sort.

Generally the wine being marketed in this way was made out of sultana grapes (or some other equally unsuitable variety) on an industrial scale for consumption by people with little money, a desire to get pissed quickly and no realistic understanding on what the “real” stuff was supposed to taste like (i.e. most adolescents, including me).

In my view this led to generations of disenfranchised wine drinkers who continue to associate white wine with the cardboard suited rubbish they inadvertently consumed in their youth and vomited back up over their mother’s living room floor.

This is a shame really as: (i) most white wine isn’t made like this anymore; (ii) wines are far better labelled and reflective of their contents these days; (iii) there is an enormous amount of exceptionally good white wine out there, in most case representing far better value that red wine of equivalent quality; and (iv) there is a hell of a lot of dodgy red wine consumed each day too.

So, my message to you White Whinies out there, is to get off your high horse, crawl out from under your bottle of Vin Rouge, taste some great examples of top quality white wine and see what you’ve been missing all these years.

Trust me you’ll never look back.

MW