Whether it’s a glass of merlot or a paper cup full of mouthwash at the dentist’s office, you can’t stop swirling. It’s become so ingrained in your muscle memory that some part of you almost feels like it’s poison if it hasn’t been swirled for optimal aeration.
Corkage fees may be cruel and unusual but they’re worth it if it means bringing your favorite wines to every dining experience. I mean what’s the alternative—trusting the sommelier and drinking off the menu?
Now that you’re starting to try some fairly respectable bottles, it feels like the worst thing would be to forget about them after they’re gone. This is why you have wine bottles in the oven, in the freezer, and steaming on the stovetop in an attempt to determine the ideal way to remove the label so you can keep it forever in your immaculate wine journal.
When you’re grocery shopping, perusing heads of butter lettuce and squeezing a mango or two, one might say you’re in the produce section but we know you’re really over by the wine shelves. And those wines are the ones who are really in control of this whole ‘what’s for dinner’ operation.
When it comes to wine clubs, perhaps you haven’t staked out a percentage of your income on membership yet, but most of your search history reveals that you’re on the path. You know all the details of all the best wine clubs and it’s only a matter of time before you break down and think, ‘maybe if I cancel my gym membership, I can make it work.’
First of all, after spending thirty minutes at the wine store before heading over, you’ve already had all the party you wanted to have. Then, when they want you to actually share what you brought? You’ve literally never seen yourself act this selfish since Kindergarten.
For the meals where you can’t always be drinking wine (we’re looking at you, weekday breakfasts), most people verbally judge their food with a simple “needs salt” or an extended “mmmm.” Not you. You’re detecting grassy notes in the scrambled eggs and hunting down exactly what dry pepper is in the salsa.
While you may be new, you’ve already got a pretty great wine-slurp going—that is, you aerate each sip by slurping air through puckered lips before tasting. You also have a pretty good sense of how your aeration sound stacks up against others, and it’s the first thing you judge your companions on.
Your tasting notes aren’t subjective, they’re observations, as legitimate as identifying colors or figures in a painting. So when your friends don’t agree that there’s just a wee note of horse blanket in this one, you’re going to be polite about it, but you’re also going to have to ask them to taste it again.
If they serve you white wine in a glass that’s made for red, then all they can expect is to have to walk back to the kitchen and correct this obscenity. It’s not that you’re picky, it’s just that there are limits—you don’t eat steak in a bowl or yogurt with a fork, and you’re not going to drink wine out of a tumbler.
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