Reading Eric Asimov’s “In Defense of Wine,” I detected strong notes of Frasier and Niles Crane, they of the wine club, of the drinking levels that only struck me as an adult. As a kid I thought, these are sophisticates. This is why they require a glass of sherry at every conversational pause. I watch it now and am thinking, how are they not always trashed?
Perhaps you could be helped towards further sophistication by Sir Roger Scruton's aptly titled "I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide To Wine." In his view, wine is quite unlike beer, weed, or nail polish.
Sure, other alcoholic drinks may provide the same relaxation and increased sociability, but wine gets you there without immediately throwing you over the edge (looking at you, jello shots). At the same time, it has just enough alcohol that you feel its warming effect as you imbibe it, mirroring the brightening of your mood. Furthermore, no other alcoholic drink is so intimately reflective of the place and time that it was made (a Molson is a Molson, right?). And viticulture is so ancient that some varieties are hundreds if maybe not thousands of years old. Is your cannabis gummy or a quick whiff of "Rouge Andalou" polish going to give you that kind of cultural connection? No, it just numbs you into oblivion while Niles and Fraser really live life.
As we four Mormon ladies pub-crawled our way across the English countryside (in most of the villages we were in, pubs were the only place to buy anything at all and we now know everything about fashionable pub food), we encountered wine lists and entertained each other with the pretentious descriptions (notes of cigar box?) . A wine critic insisting that you can't be a wine-based alcoholic makes me think about Gerald Durrell, who managed it quite capably, insisting that he had to drink gallons of red for his iron intake. But whatever, you do you.
Perhaps you could be helped towards further sophistication by Sir Roger Scruton's aptly titled "I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide To Wine." In his view, wine is quite unlike beer, weed, or nail polish.
Sure, other alcoholic drinks may provide the same relaxation and increased sociability, but wine gets you there without immediately throwing you over the edge (looking at you, jello shots). At the same time, it has just enough alcohol that you feel its warming effect as you imbibe it, mirroring the brightening of your mood. Furthermore, no other alcoholic drink is so intimately reflective of the place and time that it was made (a Molson is a Molson, right?). And viticulture is so ancient that some varieties are hundreds if maybe not thousands of years old. Is your cannabis gummy or a quick whiff of "Rouge Andalou" polish going to give you that kind of cultural connection? No, it just numbs you into oblivion while Niles and Fraser really live life.
The bouquet of your fart sniffing is intoxicating.
As we four Mormon ladies pub-crawled our way across the English countryside (in most of the villages we were in, pubs were the only place to buy anything at all and we now know everything about fashionable pub food), we encountered wine lists and entertained each other with the pretentious descriptions (notes of cigar box?) . A wine critic insisting that you can't be a wine-based alcoholic makes me think about Gerald Durrell, who managed it quite capably, insisting that he had to drink gallons of red for his iron intake. But whatever, you do you.
16 years later, Christian Lander's "Stuff White People Like" still holds up.
https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/25/24-wine/