Some common statements about wine are accepted as true partly because no one challenges them. I've started to collect them for a longer piece I'm writing, but I thought I'd share a few with you today. If you can think of others, please let me know.
First: "Wine is mysterious." (I discussed this in a column a couple of weeks ago.) Well, it's not often put like that, but it's implied by everyone who promises to "demystify" wine. In fact, wine is not mysterious. Wine is complicated, like computers, but I don't recall seeing anyone offering to "demystify" computers.
Second: "There's an ABC movement -- meaning Anything But Chardonnay -- that reflects the fact that so many people are tired of chardonnay." In fact, plantings and sales of chardonnay rise steadily, year after year. A few years ago, there was talk of pinot grigio/pinot gris overtaking chardonnay as the best-selling white, but pinot grigio stalled, maybe because so much of it was really mediocre.
Apart from the relatively few chardonnays made in extreme styles -- either too acidic and lean or too buttery and oaky -- chardonnay tends to walk the middle of the style road. That means most are pretty well-balanced and are very versatile when it comes to matching them with food.
Third: "The idea of matching red wine to red meat and white wine to white meat and fish is passé." Really? How many people do you see drinking white wine with steak and a nice big cabernet sauvignon with shrimp? Red with red and white with white is still a very good rule of thumb, and you can't go wrong with it.
But there are exceptions, such as some pinot noirs that go well with salmon, chicken, tuna, and lobster. (I have had a big, tannic red -- made from the Portuguese baga grape variety -- that went very well with a white fish dish, but it was a unique experience.
Fourth: "People don't age wine in cellars any more. They buy it and drink it, and so wine is more and more made for early drinking." In reality, only a tiny percentage of wine-drinkers ever had a cellar, whether it was a formal cellar (with controlled temperature, and so on) or collections of wine in the basement where they aged wine 10 years or longer.
My impression is that a higher percentage of wine-lovers today have cellars than did, say, 30 years ago. But it's true -- winemakers will tell you -- that more wine is being made for earlier drinking. The apparent contradiction is explained by the growth in the popularity of wine. The great bulk of the much larger wine-drinking public buys wine to order. They buy a bottle when they need it, just as they do with any other commodity.
It could be that even people with wine cabinets and other forms of cellar tend to look for wines for short- or medium-term cellaring. But there are plenty of wines out there if you're looking for some to tuck away for 15 or 20 years or longer.
Can anyone think of more wine myths, or wine "truths" that seem a bit suspicious?
Four mixed wines on today's rack -- something for everyone.