How to drink wine

Received a press release from the strangely named Hot Salsa Media (boy, all the good names really are taken), praising the success of the Soweto Wine Festival. Apparently, “over the 3 day event, a record number [of] 7548 black middle class South Africans tasted their way through over 800 wines and enjoyed live music by township Jazz band, Safika, food and wine pairing courses in the Pick n Pay tasting theatre and local menus from home-grown Soweto restaurants.”

I’m not sure how they cut out the non-black attendees from their records. I don’t remember tickets being marked according to race. Maybe all the whities, Indians and others were there on freebies. And how do they know they were middle-class? Because they can drink wine without talking about someone’s mother’s genitalia? I’ve known quite a few low class wine drinkers in my time, and you couldn’t really tell the difference that easily.

Anyway, nitpicking aside, I really enjoyed the night I was in attendance. And I remembered that I’d once written a newsletter for an online wine company, about the difference between wine connoisseurs and just plain wine drinkers. And it occurred to me that not much has changed. This is no reflection on the Soweto Wine Festival, which was a buzzing, happy mix of both those groups, and the crossover types too. But it does give a little hope to those of us who want to have fun drinking wine without necessarily becoming competitive quaffers.

Wandering the very well supplied booths at the Soweto Festival with a video crew (pictured on the right because I can’t be bothered to go and find an actual picture of the actual wine), I realised that there are two ways to drink wine. Well, three ways if you count glugging, which I don’t think we should, not if we want to get to the end of this column. The first way is knowledgeably, with all the terms on the tip of your finely educated tongue, and with a vast body of experience that you bring to bear on the wine at hand. Or at mouth, whatever the right phrase is.

The second way is stylistically, where you don’t really know much about wine, but you know what people like. So, not to put too fine a point on it, you fake it. This isn’t as nefarious a deed as it sounds. Let me explain it this way. You know that social soccer club you joined when you became too old to play serious sport?  Well, a bunch of  people who don’t know much about wine, sitting around a dinner table and sipping whatever bottle was recommended to them, are very much like that soccer club.

How, you ask? Well, your buddies are always complimenting you on what a fine game you’ve played, and every time you try something fancy with the ball, they step back and admire you instead of just kicking you in the shins. That’s what it’s like drinking wine with people who don’t know much about wine. Basically, it’s a support group for wine lovers. Every time someone says something profoundly stupid, like “This tastes rather of the inside of a gym. Very okey,” you nod approvingly.

And people who don’t know much about wine are the true wine lovers, I’m afraid, not the people who are connoisseurs, and who know everything there is to know about fine wine. That’s not love, that’s just education. True love is mysterious, and the object of your love is equally mystifying. It’s more a spiritual transaction than a vinuous one.

That’s what was so much fun about the Soweto Wine Festival, or at least on the night I was there. Everyone, organisers, growers, punters and passersby, were all entirely on the side of wine, rather than on the side of wine connoisseurs. So good work to them, and I’m sure they’ve opened up a few more people’s palates, minds and wallets to the magic that is wine. Just maybe go a little easier on the racial classification next time. Or we’ll start thinking you’ve created an upgraded dop system.

(A third – the theoretical bit -  of this column is lifted from something I wrote about 4 years ago, although I can’t remember what publication it was – nothing to be ashamed of, it’s called recycling, and it’s environmentally friendly.)
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1. 

   Verashni Pillay says:

   September 7, 2010 at 3:05 pm

   The video crew is hotter than the wine would have been anyway.
2. 

   Chris says:

   September 7, 2010 at 3:08 pm

   And more bibulous too, at least in your case.
3. 

   Anton Marshall says:

   September 7, 2010 at 5:05 pm

   It’s amazing what you can report even if according to the festival records you weren’t there. THAT’s called experience.
4. 

   Chris says:

   September 7, 2010 at 5:07 pm

   I was disguised as a small vat of wine. Not white wine either.
5. 

   biobot says:

   September 12, 2010 at 9:55 am

   I like wine. It makes me fascinating and good looking.