Drink, Drank, Drunk

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with

poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

                            Charles Baudelaire

My friends and I planned a trip to Napa Valley to go wine tasting. Although we would undoubtedly end up drinking much of the wine we tasted over the course of the next few days, that is rather than spitting it out, we still called our trip a wine tasting adventure. Why not a wine drinking adventure? It seems there are significant differences in the ways we use the words tasting and drinking, and it seems the difference has more to do with societal expectations, norms, and behaviors than merely stylistic choices in language. I believe these differences are worthy of consideration.

There seems to be only one word for tasting, although we often add an adjective like wine or blind in front of it to be more specific about the kinds of tasting in which we engage. However, there are many words for drinking and getting drunk. Sloshed, hammered, well-oiled, sozzled, under the influence, loaded, stewed, three sheets to the wind, ripped, trashed, ossified, shit-faced, plastered, blotto, bombed, crocked, pickled, and many more phrases are available for describing one’s alcoholic overindulgences. You think with so many synonyms available the idea of “drunk” would be more accepted in society. Like pre-marital sex or smoking marijuana, everyone knows about it, but no one seems to be talking about it or willing to admit to having done it. 

Drinking is the biological act of consuming a liquid, an act humans are required to engage in every day. Interestingly, no one usually labels someone who drinks only small amounts of soda, coffee or tea a novice. However, we see the term novice regularly when referring to a particular type of wine drinker in the wine literature. Drinking is biological and anatomical, while tasting is the more complicated act of savoring, deeply experiencing a wine, and eventually rendering meaning or judgment. 

Emile Peynaud equates tasting with one’s level of social standing and sophistication when he writes in the last sentence of his famous book Le Gout du Vin (The Taste of Wine), “tasting wine with care allows man [sic] to learn to drink in a civilized way.” Peynaud also cautions that it is dangerous to lead anyone to believe that a few hours are enough to train a competent palette. Not only is tasting more civilized than mere drinking, it requires dedication and extended practice. Peynaud further believes fine wine should not be drunk without comment. Therefore, not only do we have to pay attention, take an extended amount of time to study and learn the intricacies of each wine we taste, as wine enthusiasts we will also benefit from tasting wine with competent others and talking about our sensory experiences. According to Peynaud, wine tasting is a refined act, a socially acceptable practice for the well-heeled, truly accomplished only by people who have studied long and hard and have experienced a wide range of wines over the course of their lifetime. Connoisseurs and experts taste, heathens drink. 

As Mary Douglas suggested in her collection of anthropological essays entitled, Constructive Drinking, the three functions of drinking are: 1) drinking has a real social role in everyday life, 2) drinking can be used to construct an ideal world, and 3) drinking is a significant economic activity. It seems like she left one out; to get drunk. Much like the fine line that exists between Saturday night and Sunday morning, Douglas suggests there is an important distinction to be made between drinking socially and drinking to get drunk. From an anthropological perspective, drinking in moderation performs a social and ritualistic function; from a psychological perspective, drunkenness is linked to a social pathology. Tasting wine is a social experience, whereas drinking too much is a psychological experience.

In Semiotics of Drink and Drinking, Paul Manning explains the ways drinking affords different kinds of social interactions, distinct from say, the social interactions associated with eating. You can only eat so much at a sitting and generally choose to do so only three times a day. However, it seems you can always have another drink (technically, until you pass out), but your decision to have another drink is less physically motivated and more dependent upon on social circumstances and established behavioral expectations. According to Manning, drinking allows for a more “flexible alibi for off-the-cuff sociability.” We may not be able to fit in another meal, but there is usually room for another glass of wine if the social circumstances and the company one keeps calls for it.

There are limitations placed on who can legally drink (age requirements), where you can drink (licensed restaurants, bars, or at home), socially recognized reasons why you should drink (to celebrate, to mingle, or to relax), and reasons why you shouldn’t drink (to forget life’s troubles, because you are pissed off, or if you have a drinking problem). From the moment Puritans landed on the eastern shores of North America through Prohibition to the present day, Americans have been warned about the evils of drinking. Throughout the history of the United States, many laws have been passed to stop alcohol consumption or drastically curtail one’s access to wine, beer, and spirits. Leviticus in the King James Bible tells us, “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die.” Drink and then die; rather harsh I might say even for the Puritans.

In the book Sideways by Rex Pickett, and subsequent movie directed by Oliver Payne, the main character Miles Raymond frequently goes beyond socially acceptable behavior in his attempts at dealing with the challenges life has dealt him. In a fabulous scene from the movie, Miles crosses the line between socially acceptable and pathological forms of drinking when he grabs a spit bucket at a vineyard tasting room and dumps the remaining swill in his mouth and on his head because he is determined to get drunk to alleviate the current tribulations in his life. His actions are outside the bounds of the social norms of a tasting room, though his actions make for a hilarious part of the movie. Miles should remember, the tasting room is for tasting, we are expected to get drunk elsewhere.

There are many books written about tasting wine, from “how-to” books to scientific discussions about the biological and sensory apparatus we draw upon to taste. 

Jancis Robinson, a prominent figure in the world of wine and wine tasting, titles her book How to Taste with the secondary descriptor A Guide to Enjoying Wine. In her “foretaste” she states, “by being an informed wine taster (as opposed to an ignorant drinker, I assume) you can maximize your enjoyment.” It is assumed that pleasure comes from one’s knowledge of wine and the practical ways you serve and taste it. There is no place for Boones Farm Strawberry Hill or Thunderbird wine in professional wine books, not that I am advocating for their inclusion, or in fact their consumption. 

A number of wine books include the word taste in their titles; Robinson’s How to Taste, Veseth’s Money, Taste, and Wine, and Goode’s I Taste Red. However, I have not been able to find any books with the title wine drinking. In fact, if you search for “wine drinking” on the Amazon.com website, your search will reveal offers for many t-shirts, wine gadgets, and a few slightly racy novels, but no expert books on wine drinking. 

The basic assumption across many of the books I have read about wine is the more you know about wine, the more you will enjoy the experience of tasting it. But, what about drinking it? Is there a guide on how to handle the effects of alcohol consumption beyond certain levels, or do the challenges associated with being drunk have to be written about elsewhere? It seems at times that wine writers are sweeping the fact that wine gets you drunk under the proverbial rug, relegating this problem to self-help guides and AA meetings, not wine tasting books.

I have to wonder if gaining an extensive amount of wine knowledge will help me put a good buzz on, or does the wine buzz simply justify any means of getting there with little or no room for reflection? I have never seen a tasting note that simply says, “this lovely wine will get you shit-faced quickly.” The two terms tasting and drinking may signal a distinction between social acceptance and pathology. To taste wine is to engage in a time-honored ritual designed to address the complexity and aesthetics of fine wine, to simply drink to get drunk is to miss out on the pleasures of the experience. 

In Liquid Memory, I finally came across a wine writer that admits wine is also about getting inebriated. In this book, Jonathan Nossiter suggested people use wine to go beyond the immediately human. Many wine critics write about wine as if it has no intoxicating effects on humans, but many humans, myself included, choose to drink wine at times simply to change our reality. Drink-Drank-Drunk. I have never heard a wine connoisseur say they were going to a fancy wine tasting to intentionally get hammered, yet many attendees at these grand affairs do, in fact, get sloshed. 

Another way to distinguish between tasting and drinking is whether the practice of spitting, or more accurately expectorating, into a spit bucket is allowed, suggested, or required. Expectorating is done in order to taste a wine but prevent alcohol from getting into one’s digestive system, allowing for one to taste for longer periods of time. There is an art to expectorating and several wine experts have written about how to spit properly. At Brooks Winery in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, they made available a postcard that featured a photograph of a formally dressed woman spitting wine in an arc that must cover at least six feet in the air. It is a spectacular image. However glorious the image, you might want to look around and ask before trying this maneuver during your next winery visit. Tasting rooms have spit buckets, wine bars do not.

Others have written about the impoliteness of spitting. In The Accidental Connoisseur, Lawrence Osborne was told by an Italian vintner that he would only allow him to sample his wines if he promised not to spit it out. Makes sense to me. This vintner wants his wines to be drunk, savored, enjoyed, and most importantly swallowed, not simply tasted and spit. So, when visiting tasting rooms in Napa, are we being rude to the vintner when we spit out their wine, or are we justified in these actions because everyone is just trying to get through a long day of tasting? Believe me, there are many empty spit buckets in many tasting rooms in Napa

Escaping the Boredom

There is an essential difference between the wines we are familiar with and drink often, and the wines we have not tried or even heard of. Many wine drinkers favor wines that are familiar over wines that are unfamiliar, and usually drink certain known wines more often. Our vinous memory of the wines we know plays an important role in how we experience the next glass of wine. Familiar wines just tend to taste “right.” Unfamiliar wines can be off-putting and may take more time to come to appreciate. Our penchant for familiar wines can benefit local producers and large distributors but does not always help broaden people’s tastes in wine. What tastes right is often more comfortable over what tastes new. To expand our wine horizons, we have to develop our appreciation for a new wine by repeated experiences and careful attention to the new sensations each new wine provides.

Andrew Jeffords, in Decanter magazine, stated, “a classic wine is a familiar one which inspires affection and is trusted to deliver certain satisfaction.” This may suggest a new wine may possibly inspire disappointment and should not be trusted to deliver certain level of satisfaction. I hope not. Trying new wines should be an enjoyable adventure. Exploring new regions and new varieties is one of the pleasures of my life. I often use my Coravin to try sips of new and unfamiliar wines before opening them and sharing them with my friends. Well-stocked wine bars may be an excellent venue for trying new styles and regions. When I visit some of my favorite wine regions like Napa, Willamette Valley, Rioja, Bordeaux or Australia I try to schedule visits to new wineries along with returning to some of my favorite producers. I try and blend new wines with old favorites as much as possible.

It is not recommended that we simply compare new wines with the wines we already know, though it is very difficult not to have our previous experiences color and affect how we experience new wines. If we have never tasted a Spanish Rioja Gran Reserva, the oxidation from the extended ageing of these wines and the flavors imparted from the use of new oak barrels may be off-putting at first for some wine enthusiasts. It would be easy to directly compare a Rioja with a Napa cabernet sauvignon but that would be rather short-sighted. These are very different wines. They should be judged on their own merits. Eventually, you may come to prefer one over the other but that doesn’t make the other wine bad. 

In a great picturebook I used to read to my elementary students, Shark vs.Train, the story revolves around two young boys fighting over which is better, a toy train or a toy shark. In the ensuing debate, each boy shows how his toy can do things the other toy can’t. In this humorous picturebook, the shark is better at some tasks, like swimming and diving, while the train wins out by pulling heavy loads and firing up its steam engine. Comparing the attributes of a shark to those of a train is the equivalent of comparing a German Riesling to an Australian Shiraz, they are certainly different, but both can be excellent wines in their own right. Just because you may not like one or the other doesn’t necessarily make it a wine to be ignored.

Global tastes may reign supreme in the wine market, but the quality of certain branded wines may be overestimated. Reverse engineering and market-based research may help create a wine that sells well, but not a wine that is well made. We need to help wine enthusiasts step out of their comfort zones, put the bottle of Yellowtail down for a minute, and try some new wines. But, how does one go about this? How do we get people to make the shift from comfort drinking to wine experimentation? How do I help wine enthusiasts shift their tastes without denigrating the wines they currently enjoy? For me, more opportunities to mindfully drink significantly better wines over a period of time is the only way forward. Even then, there will be great diversity in people’s preferences, and we need to accept and respect everyone’s tastes as we try to expand their understandings.

So What?

So, to taste or to drink, that seems to be an important question. I suggest we do a bit of both. Can’t we enjoy the complexities, nuances, and pleasures afforded us by tasting a well-made wine and still enjoy putting a little buzz on? Isn’t one of the purposes of social drinking to loosen one’s tongue, to let one’s hair down, to unwind after a long day at work, to relax by the fire with a glass of wine, and laugh along with a few good friends? I believe this is one of the hidden secrets of the wine profession that goes unspoken. I guess it depends on where you are in your career and with whom you are talking.

As wine enthusiasts, I believe we have to slow down when tasting wine, take our time to consider the wine in the glass in front of us, pay attention to our sensations, call forth our vinous memories, and personally reflect on the experience of the wine before discussing it. This is what I refer to as mindful tasting. Like practicing yoga or transcendental meditation, it requires a focusing of one’s attention to what is happening in the moment; to look closely at what is in the glass in front of you and consider it more deeply, rather than absent-mindedly consuming a bottle of wine. Although, I concede there are circumstances that would suggest both tasting and drinking are admirable ways to proceed.

I enjoy wines that make me think about them. Wines that are complex, interesting, unwilling to give up all their secrets on the first sip. Like good literature, the best wines are the ones that make you think, and the ones that make you want to go back and read them, or in this case taste them, again and again. Ernest Hemingway said wine is one of the most civilized things in the world. He probably meant tasting wine, not drinking it.

One of the ways of distinguishing between tasting and drinking is by considering the degree to which wine is part of a particular experience. In one case, wine is part and parcel of a larger, more important social experience (drinking), and in the other the wine is the focus of the experience (tasting). Throwing back a few glasses of cheap plonk at a biker bar while watching a monster truck rally is different from tasting various vintages of Bordeaux when visiting Chateaux Margaux to be sure. And unlike Miles Raymond in Sideways, one must never forget the circumstances under which one is tasting. Or do I mean drinking?