Last week I recounted a valuable lesson I learned when I was studying literature: prior knowledge is not necessary to read and appreciate any poem. Simply pay attention to the text and your own reactions to it. Your reactions are always valid, as long as you recognise that’s what they are: impressions formed in your head, and not inherent in the poem itself. Thinking it over, I realised the same lesson could apply to wine. Or indeed to whisky, or cheese, or any of the tasty things we sell in the shop.

One of the most common things customers say to us is, ‘I need to buy a bottle as a present, but I know nothing about wine.’ Often their faces wear a look of mixed embarrassment and panic. I understand why it feels like it’s necessary to ‘know’ something before spending £10 or £20 on a bottle – especially if it’s a gift. You want to match your purchase to what you think the recipient will enjoy. But honestly, there’s no one need worry: me and the other staff know far too much about wine, and a few simple questions will solve the dilemma:

Does the recipient like red or white wine?
Are they traditionally minded, or interested in trying new experiences?
How much, roughly, do you want to spend?

The middle question might sound like the hardest one to answer, but invariably everyone knows instinctively where their friend or relation sits on this spectrum. And it’s very useful when it to comes to suggesting a wine.

Some bottles have austere, text-based labels. The text is likely to be a classic serif font, and the words it spells out a slightly intimidating barrage of a foreign language: Le Haut-Médoc de Haut-Bages Libéral, Haut-Médoc, 2015. Of course it is sealed with a cork. Other bottles have multi-coloured, cartoon-like labels, exploding with energy and irreverence. The Good Luck Club, 2021, for instance, features cheerily grimacing Japanese monks, manga style. It comes with a sleek black screwcap.

Both wines, as it happens, are made with the same grape, Cabernet Sauvignon. You’d have to read the small print on the Aussie wine to find that out, and it’s not mentioned at all on the French wine (which also includes some Merlot.) But if someone thinks they don’t ‘know’ a lot about wine, it’s unlikely they’ll be confident choosing between Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and a hundred other grapes. You don’t need to ‘know’ about grape varietals, or organic practices, or barrel regimes to choose a good wine as a gift. You just need to know your friend, and we’ll help you do the rest.

And as for drinking and enjoying a wine, you need to know nothing. Once again: simply pay attention to the wine and your own reactions to it. Your reactions are always valid, as long as you recognise that’s what they are: impressions formed in your nose and on your palate, and not inherent in the wine itself.

Sometimes I think people who ‘know’ a lot about wine are less reliable tasters than people who go in with a mind free of preconceptions. I include myself in this. I ‘know’ that Cabernet Sauvignon wines almost always smell of blackcurrants, so when I open either of the bottles mentioned above, I expect to find those aromas. My mind has been conditioned that way. Someone who doesn’t ‘know’, who doesn’t have the same preconditioning, might well find that the Haut-Bages Libéral tastes of cherries and the Good Luck Club tastes of plum jam. And when they do, they won’t be disappointed because the wines are not what they expected. They will enjoy them because they are delicious.

Like any trade or art, years of buying and selling wine, talking to winemakers and visiting their wineries, inevitably leads to the acquisition of knowledge. That’s not a bad thing in itself: thousands of stored memories of tastes and textures is essential when choosing a wine to stock or recommend. The alternative is to open a bottle every time you want to talk about it – which would quickly become ruinous for both health and bank balance.

However, when it comes to drinking a wine for assessment – and even more so for pleasure – I try to clear my mind of what I know. Then I pour a glass, and pay attention.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 20th June 2024. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.

Diary of a Shopkeeper, 16th June 2024