What’s really galling about this artificial dialect is the claimed reason why many wine writers and educators use it: to enlighten “everyday drinkers” (translation: the “little people”) about wine. This is patent obfuscation (my word: BS), and many wine writers and educators would like to remain in comfortable denial about its underlying motivation. Elaborate wine babble is not merely chit-chat, like talking about the weather. It’s class distinction; a way to keep some people out of the precious wine country club. And that really sucks.

Before Republican congressman Andrew Volstead introduced the National Prohibition Act of 1919, which was enforced as the 18th amendment to the Constitution the following year, America’s large European immigrant population drank wine regularly with meals, and wine was a normal part of everyday life.

These common people would, as they did in the old country, either make their own wine at home, or simply buy it from neighbors or from the local bodega or winery, filling up jugs they brought along with them (the original recyclers). When purchased in restaurants, a “house wine” was often made by the winery owner, or came from a local winery, and was more than likely one of the better wines available. A great “middle-class” of wine drinkers flourished, with relatively few upper-class snobby collector-types or lower-class gutter-drunk winos.

After prohibition was repealed in 1933, the US wine industry found itself in a shambles, and America faced the Great Depression. Suffice it to say nobody was drinking a whole lot of wine during this period, except perhaps a few rarified collectors who traded with elite auction houses and fine estate brokers.

As the wine industry gradually found its feet in the decades following the war, a small group of power-hungry opportunists nabbed the chance to wrest control of wine information and culture. These self-proclaimed “wine experts” eventually formed groups such as the American Wine Society (founded in ’67)  (http://www.americanwinesociety.org/web/welcome.htm) and the Society of Wine Educators (http://wine.gurus.com/index.html), born ten years later.

No matter what these groups profess as their raison d’etre, trust me, what they actually do is inculcate successive generations with the same babble-itis that has plagued the wine world for decades. They’re a lot like the people who can’t help but say “lacerations and contusions” when it’s just as easy to say cuts and bruises. Worse yet, the wine experts are practically in competition to take their discourse to the next level of loquacious obscurity. They’d likely refer to the above as epidermal lacerations and hematoma. Get me?

Somewhere in the 1960’s, this small group of individuals, the “wine experts,” staked their claim as the repository for all approved wine knowledge, setting in motion a vicious snob cycle, based entirely on their eclectic and not-so-easily-understood personal preferences. Here’s a bit of illustrative dialog circa 1967, set at a social gathering:

REGULAR WINE JOE:
I think I’d like a glass of white wine.

WINE EXPERT:
Any white wine?

REGULAR WINE JOE:
Uh… sure… maybe, cold white wine?

WINE EXPERT:
If I were you I’d have a nice 1964 Macon-Village, but not any lower than cellar temperature…

REGULAR WINE JOE:
Uh… cellar temperature…?

WINE EXPERT:
In Southern Burgundy, it averages approximately 51 degrees Farenheit.

REGULAR WINE JOE:
Burgundy? I thought I was drinking white wine…

WINE EXPERT:
Oh my!  You simply must come to one of our wine education meetings, you ignorant pig.*

* “…you ignorant pig” is implied by means of one acidly arched eyebrow, and is never spoken aloud.

The big problem here is that Regular Wine Joe, like you and me, just wants a nice little glass of something to calm his nerves at the end of what was probably a long and trying day. At this point we all know what happens: Joe strolls over to the open bar and suddenly becomes:

REGULAR BOOZE JOE:
Gimme a Scotch on the rocks.

Now… Scotch Whiskey is at arguably as complex as Burgundy wine, with its different regions and producers and distillation methods and peating and ageing in barrels and strengths and blending. But does the barkeep demand to know, Any Scotch, Joe? Islay or Speyside? Eight-year or 20? Blended or Single Malt? Does the bartender beat Joe up for having his Scotch over ice, when Scotch experts prefer it neat with a one-to-one ratio of distilled water? Nope. He just pours some Scotch out of the well over some ice and hands it to Joe. No wonder Scotch was so popular in the 60’s.

To this day, well-meaning “wine experts” continue to stymie would-be wine enjoyers with fear and loathing the world over, mostly out of a sense of elevated self-importance, and perhaps a shot of over-compensation for some perceived inferiority. Regular people just getting into wine feel they have to mimic this behavior, especially with their fellow uninitiated. Normal words like “smell” and “taste” are clearly illegal; high-falutin’ utterances such as “nose” and “palate” are much preferred.

In short, a couple of decades ago a great cultural divide of wine “haves” and “have-nots” developed, with no wine “middle class.” Seemingly, if you drank wine regularly you were either a) one of the wine cognoscenti who knew the code and drank only coveted wines from “the list,” or b) a gutter-level wino who swilled Night Train. Only the “educated” were allowed into the country club of wine drinkers.

Luckily this has begun to change (by accident, of course) as the wine establishment has lost touch with the twenty-somethings of the Millennial Generation. These Millennials are not aware of any cultural biases that would prevent them from experimenting with or enjoying wine for wine’s sake. With the younger wine drinkers’ arrival, the “experts” have begun to lose control over who may approach the gate, and the fear level has dropped precipitously. Amen!

A new “middle-class” of wine drinkers is evolving. These free thinkers don’t need to abide by rules, attend wine classes, read wine books or adhere to the junk printed on labels— and they most certainly don’t need to engage in meaningless and empty chatter about what beverage they’re enjoying. They don’t blather on endlessly about their cappuccino or their Coke Zero, their Monster or their mineral water. And, refreshingly, they don’t feel the need to do it with their vino, either.

First Exploding Wine Myth of 2007:
There’s No Such Thing as “The Perfect Serving Temperature”

Wow! Another reason you can relax and breathe easy: You don’t ever have to worry if you’re serving your wine at the correct temperature. That’s right!  All of those years you spent looking for the temperature on the back of the label, then wondering how the hell you would measure the temperature anyway, or how you would even get the wine to that exact temperature, you could have spent volunteering for your favorite charity instead.

For you doubters out there, let me illustrate the many reasons why there is no one correct temperature at which to serve wine:

CELLAR TEMPERATURE
Every wine geek worth his tastevin knows that the “conventional wisdom” about serving whites slightly chilled and reds a little cooler than room temperature is pure crap. The current vogue is to serve the wine at “cellar temperature,” or about 52-56 F°. Going a step further, today’s super-sommeliers will serve the wine at the actual cellar temperature for that particular winery. So if it’s a Sauterne from d’Yquem, make it 55.4 F°, a Pinot Noir from Rex Hill, better be 50.7 F°. In this example, we’re serving the wines at their respective wineries’ average cellar temperature, which varies because of climatic conditions in each of the regions. (Contrary to popular perception, most cellars where wines are actually made are NOT 100% climate controlled, so they vary greatly over the course of a year.) You may have noticed in the example above that the white gets served warmer than the red.

What’s goofy here is that of course neither cellar is exactly 55.4 F° or 50.7 F° at all times. It may be that temperature for extended periods, but there are also periods when the temperature is far higher or lower than this. The serving temperature is simply an average; artificially precise, and arbitrarily chosen.

Most winemakers evaluate wines at near room temperature, but would never enjoy them with dinner this way. However, most winemakers would also agree that cellar temperature is too cold for most of the flavors and aromatic nuances of their wines to be explored. Even if cellar temperature were the correct temperature , you would still have the problems of…

AMBIENT TEMPERATURE
Suppose you serve the wine at precisely the right temperature, and, let’s say you’ve chilled the glasses to the correct temperature as well (no one ever does this). The moment you pour the wine it begins to rise (or drop) to the ambient temperature of the room. So, unless you’re serving the wine in a room the same temperature as the wine, your beverage will almost immediately stray from its temperature target.

This is compounded, obviously, by the temperature of the glass and the temperature of your hand and your lips as they touch the wine. Plus your mouth heats the wine almost instantly to your full body temperature. So all of this fuss about temperature achieves at most about a half-second of flavor interest. Silly.

BOTTLE VARIATION
As wines age, the recommended temperature on the label or the winemaker’s original recommended temperature becomes outdated. Even within the same vintage of the same wine, there is bottle variation; not-so-subtle differences among individual bottles that would call for slightly less or slightly more chill.

What to do? Simple. Taste the wine first. Then chill as necessary. Have an ice bucket handy for such use. If you know you like your Chardonnay ice cold, go ahead and make it that way. Serve red over ice if you like it that way. Or heated. What matters is your taste and your fellow drinkers’ tastes, not what others dictate. What tastes best to you? Getting the wine close enough in temperature is good enough, because even the experts can’t get it right.