Most common misunderstanding or mistakes

[vengroff]

A few of the questions and answers so far have touched on issues where there is some kind of disconnect between your ideas and those those that pervade the wine marketplace, especially on the consumer side. The discussion of packaging issues, and the question of why people drink white zinfandels in such quantity are good examples.

So I'll ask the meta question: What do you think are the most common or most serious misconseptions and predjudices consumers have about wine? By all means, people should drink what they like, but those who are open-minded may find things they will enjoy even more.

Feel free to answer from points anywhere on market's spectrum, from wine-buying neophytes to experienced consumers clinging to old traditional ideas that no longer make sense.

[Randall Grahm]

Dear Vengroff,

If you ask a meta-question, you may get a meta-answer. I think that you have alluded to the core issue in an off-hand remark that you made. I think that the chief misconception that people have about wine is that there is somehow a universal standard of goodness and that good wine needs to taste a certain way, i.e. dry or tannic or sweet or whatever. I think that many, if not most wine drinkers really don't fully grasp the fact that a particular wine may be great or less great within a given context, not just the food that it is paired with but the particular seasonality. A rosé is not likely to be a great, great wine but eating lunch al fresco on the Mediterranean, there is no better choice that one could make. There is the misconception that if you pay a lot of money you are perforce going to get a wine that pleases you. I think that it is crucial that people somehow find a way to study themselves and learn to really know what pleases them, rather than trying to adapt their taste to the authority of a second party. Cheers, RG.