Snippets with Shannon: Rethinking Wine Snobbery
Wine Snob: a special breed of wine-lover who feels the need to proclaim their superior knowledge to anyone within earshot.
There is a sense of notable intelligence that is associated with talking about wine but with that intelligence can come the stigma of being a wine snob. While I come from a place of there being a wine for everyone, there are people who like to have an air of exclusivity when it comes to what they like. I have already noticed that in the short time that I've been working in the wine industry, the people closest to me have commented on how smart I sound. Not to say I've never been considered an intelligent individual but when you can speak confidently about something that another person may be unacquainted with, you’ll probably come off as more astute. The main point that I need to get across, though, is that intelligence does not have to equal snobbery.
To any winemakers reading this, I am so sorry for the rest of this sentence, but… I truly don't care how you drink your wine. Fill your glass to the brim with ice, chill your reds, drink your sparkling out of a plastic cup; it’s all cool with me. At the very core, wine is meant to be enjoyed and as long as you're down to share a bottle with me, I'm down with however you want to enjoy your half. (No promises that I won't poke a little fun at you for drinking your Merlot on ice, though.)
As the North Fork Wine Country looks towards the next 50 years, it’s not a bad idea to think about how wine in general will inevitably change. We must always hold on to the age-old traditions, respect the origins and take notes from our mentors who planted the first roots but no vine grows the same way twice and I'm all for new ideas. I believe that the future is in good hands. Us young people are way more aware of what is going on with the world and while arguably we have access to too much information these days, the next generation of North Fork oenophiles really seem to want to use all that information for the good of our future.
“To each their own,” “you do you,” all the sayings that pertain to holding on to your individuality are great but I do think there can be a more inclusive exclusivity; there is not a single grape varietal in the world that has a maximum occupancy. I have a dream…(that's not copyrighted, right?) that one day a bottle of 2013 Cabernet Franc and a bottle of chillable 2022 Cabernet Franc can stand beside each other on the same table surrounded and enjoyed by multiple generations of Wine Geeks. Yeah, Wine Geeks. I like that way better than Wine Snobs.