Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Wine myths. Most of us have heard some of them. Some, like me, have heard all of them. Picked up on the street or read in amateur blogs, such misstatements only exacerbate the difficulty of choosing a good wine. Unfortunately, many wine drinkers have become fixated on these sorts of falsehoods. While I could easily respond to the scores of wine fallacies out there, here are a few that unnerve me
the most.
“Riesling is too sweet for me.”
This blanket statement is the most aggravating myth by far. While it’s true that most of us equate Riesling with those cheap, flat, and insipid exports from Germany, you must try, try again! Rieslings are great, amazing, powerful, haunting, dry, and some of the most ethereal wines I have ever had. Period.
“European wines don’t have sulfites, so they don’t give me headaches.”
Wrong. There are more sulfites in that salad you had for lunch than in a bottle of wine, and 10 times more sulfites in those dried apricots you snack on than in a single glass of wine. It’s not the sulfites that make your head ache. It’s the alcohol—or total amount of alcohol you consume—that’s to blame. See above.
“Chardonnay is too oaky.”
This mantra sends chills down the spine of any lover of Chablis. Even in California, unoaked and low-oak chardonnays are popping out of the woodwork: Diatom, Brewer-Clifton, HdV, Stony Hill, and Chappellet. All are great examples of this style and showcase the great diversity of the chardonnay grape with a deft hand.
“High-alcohol wines aren’t any good.”
A high alcohol level in wine is not inherently a bad thing; it should not denote a certain quality level or pedigree, as most wine labels’ alcohol statements are misleading, if not altogether false. By law, wines get a 1.5 percent swing in either direction, which means that your 13.9 percent cabernet is probably really 15.4 percent or perhaps even higher. I’ve never seen anyone turn down an opportunity to taste Sine Qua Non, Marcassin, or the classic years of Bordeaux (’45, ’59, ’61, ’82, and ’89), all of which are high-alcohol wines. Trusting the accuracy of a wine’s stated alcohol content is tantamount to trusting politicians… Just don’t do it, all right?
