Ten Surprising Ways To Love Wine In 2015

Maybe wine has made it onto your New Year’s resolution list. Maybe you’d like to learn more about it, or drink more of it, or finally — finally! — look like you actually know what you’re doing when you taste it.

If that’s the case, then this list is not for you.

This list is not for you if wine is an item to check off your to-do list. It is not for you, either, if you want to be a “wine expert.”

If, on the other hand, you have a curiosity about wine, if you’re willing to take your time with it, if you think about wine as part of life, as integrated into a bigger picture… If you want toenjoy wine, then yes, this list is for you.

Here are ten ways to increase your chances of enjoying wine — and of going all the way to loving it — in 2015.

This year, make it a point to try grapes you’ve never heard of, from places you’ve never been. Your experience will be so much more interesting if you do.

1. Try a grape you’ve never heard of. Please. Your experience will be so much more interesting if you do.
2. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the rigamarole of how to taste and sniff and evaluate wine. Instead of, How do I taste this wine? Ask instead, What is the story behind this wine?
3. Try wine from a US state that is not California. I love California wines, and they are the US benchmark for good reason. But I’m encouraging you to expand your horizons here. Break your own trail to a different part of the wine shop or the wine list.
4. You might start with wines from Oregon, Washington, New York, and Virginia. But there are 45 other states after that, and they all produce wine. Which means there’s a winery near you.
5. Visit a winery. It doesn’t have to be a big, expensive, trip-of-a-lifetime deal. The point is to look around the environment where the wine comes from, and especially to talk to the people who work there.
6. Start identifying to yourself what you smell when you first walk into a room. Identifying smells takes practice, and there’s no reason to wait until you’ve got a glass in your hand to do it. The idea is to get into the routine, and to increase your memory bank of smells.
7. Read about wine. Sure, there are reference books that might come off as fairly dry. They serve their purpose too. But there are also wine books with a plot, with engaging writing, and with narratives that make you forget you’re absorbing information about wine while you’re reading the story.
8. “Read” non-books. Find bloggers you like who post frequently. Listen to podcasts. Search YouTube. Start following photographers who specialize in wine. Wine is not a linear subject, and there are lots of ways to “flesh out” your experience of it.
9. Learn what bitter is, and how to describe it. It’s a misunderstood sensation but, as one of the four or five basic tastes, it’s worth getting to know it better.
10. Consider that the news you may usually skim actually has big implications for wine. News items related to agriculture, sustainability, legal classifications, trade agreements, labor and migration all have a direct bearing on how the wine tastes, how much you paid for it, and what it took to bring that particular bottle to your table. (See number 2, above.)