As probably the majority of American wine drinkers, I have always judged wine by a few tried and true criteria; taste and price being the driving forces while other more incidental features having some subtle influence and sway. I’m a sucker for cool label art. I have bought far too many a bottle with a cool label only to be bitterly disappointed in the wine within. Obviously my logic of “Any winemaker, who spends this much time on a cool design, must have some class ‘A’ wine” has failed me more than once. I have also found that bottle shape and size have influenced my purchasing in the past. As much as I love Gruner Veltliner, I rarely buy it when it comes in that long lovely bottle that serves the acidity so well. Why? It doesn’t fit well into either the shelf or side door of my refrigerator. I may love wine, but I am far too lazy to reconfigure the shelves of my fridge to accommodate my alcoholic purchases. Considering this fact, having flung open my refrigerator door in haste only to have a half empty bottle of Gruner topple over spilling all the remaining goodness over my fridge, dinner and self, I no longer buy it. I have decided that Gruner Veltliner is a wine I will enjoy at restaurants or only when I am sure I will be polishing off the entire bottle in one serving.

Let’s get back to the first two major criteria that I listed, taste and price. Price, in this economy, needs no explanation. I am hard pressed to ever spend more than $30 for daily drinking. Actually the amount is closer to $20 but I’ll say $30 for argument’s sake. Sure, I’ve bought my husband a great bottle here and there as an anniversary or birthday gift. I’ve bought friends expensive champagne for special occasions. But for day-to-day consumption $30 is my limit.

That leaves taste. Thinking back to my young adulthood (honestly, it was really my teens) when I first started sampling wine, my preference and/or aversion for certain wines was firmly set. Of course these preferences and aversions were formed in the most refined of fashions. By finishing off the few dredges left at the bottom of my mother’s wine glass while cleaning up the kitchen or pouring a small amount out of the bottle from the fridge, I decided that I absolutely despised CHARDONNAY. The syrupy texture, the yellow hue, the cloying buttery taste, the over powering oaky aroma, to me, it represented all things wrong with wine. If I had to choose between chardonnay and dieing of thirst, I would gladly choose the later. Needless to say, I am no fan of chardonnay. We all have emotional baggage from our childhood. Memories of stolen sips from the box of wine in our kitchen, is my steamer trunk.

Fast forward a decade or two and here I am working with the talents at Maslow 6. A few afternoons ago I found myself sitting at a wine tasting with Maslow’s quietly classy Keri K. and brilliant and effervescent Mollie B. Philip Tuinder from Chateau de Fuisse and Vincent has just poured us our first taste. I sipped. I enjoyed. It was a lovely, smooth, easy white wine. I sipped some more and listened to Philip discuss the changes that they have made on the label; reworking the logo, changing the wording, and finally, placing the varietal CHARDONNAY right there on the front. What?! Chardonnay?! How could this be? I liked this wine. I wanted to drink more of it. My wine world had turned upside-down. I sat in awe as Philip, Mollie, and Keri discuss the label, the wine, the market, and so forth. At some point, someone asks for my opinion, why, I’m still not sure. I, in all my oenophilial knowledge blurted out, “If I walked into a store, picked up the bottle, and saw chardonnay, I would never buy it.” Classy, I know. Tact is not my forte. As much as my colleagues tried to reassure me that I hadn’t totally embarrassed myself and insulted this lovely man, I felt like a total heel but at least an honest one. I really never would have bought that wine and what a pity that would be. It had none of the characteristic that I so despise. It had an extremely reasonable price. And the label art was quite nice. It met all of my wine buying criteria! The only problem was the name – chardonnay.

This incident started me thinking about what truly is in a name? I have come to discover that with wine, this is a complicated and complex question to answer. So what is a novice wine enthusiast to do? Sample, read, learn, listen, try – all of these things are just the beginning but oh so important. Embarrassing as this episode might have been, I now know that I don’t despise chardonnay as a whole. I know that there are characteristics of certain wine that I don’t enjoy as much as others. Developing an understanding of your own taste preferences is crucial to enjoying wine. Never again will I discount a wine strictly due to its name. I will ask. I will try. And hopefully, I will build a lovely collection of wines, chardonnays included.

Next time, those pesky European labels………..

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