Comrades!
You young winos are jumping into the wine conversation, and making a big, messy splash along the way. We love that you are redefining wine culture with your unfussy approach, taking what was once a foofy social rite and turning it into a pretension-free pursuit. When it comes to wine, you drink more, know more and enjoy a broader selection than any generation before you.
Say it loud and say it proud, be you Gen X, Y or MTV: You are young, and you are thirsty!
Be gone, sixer of Old Milwaukee. Come hither, sauvignon blanc. There is no need for a proper glass — I will drink you straight from the bottle, and I will like it. Leave me, mystique and snobbery. Don’t let the door hit ya’ where the good Lord split ya’.
These days, the young and young at heart aren’t intimidated by wine; they’re fascinated by it. No offense to the Corona, the Margarita, the Vodka Tonic or the Alabama Slamma’, but this wine thing that’s happening? It’s really happening.
Being on the receiving end of seven generations of wine making, we may have gotten the jump on you. But you are catching up — fast. We love that you’re grabbing a bottle of wine and sharing it over a movie. We love that you’re hosting wine parties, going to flight nights and checking out local tastings.
Someone — God love this person — has hipped you to the secret pass code: deep knowledge of wine isn’t necessary to enjoy it. At the end of the day, it’s just grape juice. No one cares that you don’t know what “mouthfeel” means, at least in a wine context. The fact is you like what you like, and that’s OK.
This is actually what we love about the Young/Thirsty movement: While the generation before us tended to overestimate what they knew about wine, we — if anything — tend to underestimate what we know. Just as poker players are fond of saying the game is just one long hand, young winos know that wine fandom is but one long pour. Where we are along the continuum doesn’t matter nearly as much as our simple presence in the process. We’re ruled by the simple joy of discovery.
We love that you’ve left the door open for screw caps, boxed wines and paper cups, as well as for brands with animals on the label and names like Oops, Cleavage Creek, Frogs Piss and Fat Bastard. Who cares how it got here, as long as it got here, right?
Real, reasonable and fashionable conversation on wine is going on amongst our peers, and we humbly toss this tome into the fray. The Kovacs Brothers are here to represent the California delegation, but you have the Internet at your fingertips, and thus the world is your wine rack.
Here is why our generation is poised to enjoy wine more deeply than any before us:
*We’ve embraced variance. We read a study recently that said Boomer wine drinkers play it safe, with 4 out of every 10 bottles they buy representing “favorite” wines. But our generation takes risks, relying on “favorites” for just 1 in 10 of our wine purchases. What fun is it going to a ballgame if you know how it’s going to end? You may have loved Game 7 tonight, but that doesn’t mean you want to see the same thing tomorrow. If you want to skip to the last page of the book, you should be a vodka drinker. Wine drinkers are on a mystery tour, loving the popping of the cork and not knowing what’s next.
Our generation looks beyond what’s eye level at the grocery store in much the same way we want to buy art for reasons beyond what matches the couch. We’re not sure wine was meant to be mass produced, made in a giant vat to taste the way it did the year before, and the year before that. Did Rembrandt have 100 painters behind him, imitating him stroke for stroke for the sake of bringing him to the masses? Sometimes a winemaker is Vince Young against USC, rendering touchdowns inevitable. Other times he’s Vince Young with Tennessee — a huge question mark. Such is the nature of the fickle grape.
*We’re letting the little guy in the game. Man, do we appreciate this one. Your willingness to rely on peer recommendations and buy wine on the Internet has taken the power away from massive distributors, and put it squarely in your hands. Now wine can be judged on its merit. In 2007, hundreds of people enjoyed our first Meritage over Thanksgiving dinner, not knowing it had been shipped to them straight from the back seat of our hoopty. And you know what? It was damn good Meritage.
*We’ve fallen in love with the story. There’s no such thing as a boring winemaker. They have to be an artist and mad scientist at the same time. This blend makes for good wine, though we’d not recommend trusting them with your car keys. The Internet has given you access to these stories, and soon their stories fold into yours. Our generation has discovered how wine never leaves you. It helps you mark time; remember where you were and who you were with in a way beer never could. (No offense to beer. We love beer.) The winemaker’s story folds into yours, and so it goes.
Who knows how it happened, but wine has been democratized. The youth movement is on. Said wine writer Chris Kassel: “The 70 million or so babies of the baby boomers are being taken by the hand and led gently away from Long Island ice tea and into Long Island Syrah.”
We got into wine in our college apartment, all asses and elbows, shouting out taste notes like “pie,” “glue,” and “burning-embers-all-the-way-down-my-throat-I-need-to-spit-this-out-NOW.” Fortunately, our wise father had us savor the journey rather than focus on the destination, and told us that if a wine was non-descript, that was the wine’s problem, not ours.
It seems we weren’t alone.
