When you first start to really think about the wine you are drinking and to take it a little more seriously there is a huge temptation to become a wine ‘geek’ and dismiss anything that is not to your personal taste. I take the view that there is no such thing as a bad wine (unless it’s corked, of course) just a wine that is not to my taste. We had a classic example of that at our Wine Society meeting the other week when one of the members presented a Chilean Wine which some of our members thoroughly enjoyed – indeed it would not have been chosen unless it was a favourite of the lady who presented it. However it did produce something of a shock because, for the first time in all the years I have been a member of this group I actually spat out a wine because to me, it was horrid.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the wine. It was well made, just not to my taste. Much like a friend of mine who has an eclectic taste in wine – as long as it’s not Malbec, she can spot even the tiniest percentage at a thousand paces, yet she would tell you she can’t differentiate between grape varieties. There is nothing wrong with it, she just doesn’t like it. Like any food or drink there are some we like and some we don’t. Wine is no different so don’t be tempted to dismiss a wine just because someone else doesn’t like it – it might not be to their taste – but it could be just the wine you have been searching for all your life!
