Martha is a single work-at-home mom. She works as a social media strategist and consultant at Yellowfly Social Media. She also blogs over at Momsoap, where she writes about parenting and race-related issues, because her daughter, Annika, is biracial. Her blogging style is irreverent, which mostly means that she swears a lot. She likes wine, but she’s never quite sure if Shiraz is a brand or a type of wine.
I’ve always considered myself a bit of a wino when it comes to wine. But last week I realized something, since becoming a mom, I’m no longer a wino. I’m a wannabe wineaux. I wish, with just a hint of desperation, that I knew what good wine tasted like and how to tell a hit from a dud.
I like to imagine that I know what really good wine tastes like. I dated a guy once who proffered me French wine from menus without prices. I pretended to understand how delicious they were. To me, they all tasted like wine has always tasted. Some wine is delicious, and some just leaves my mouth feeling like someone mixed cardboard with grapes and bottled it with a vineyard label.
My first bout with wine was, I kid you not, Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. I was not even legal drinking age yet. But I thought it was delicious. I drank the entire bottle while waiting for a friend to show up, who was supposed to be sharing it with me. I was shamelessly drunk and entirely happy with myself after that experience. For years, all wines paled in comparison to that enjoyable evening where I was mostly drunk on the delight of being drunk from a $3 bottle of wine.
My standards moved up when I started working at an Olive Garden, at the age of 19, and I learned that the choice of wine with your dinner depends on the color of your meat. It seems ridiculous to me now, but yes, people actually came into a place that serves endless baskets of bread and salad and expect the servers to know about wine.
I always had a good answer. My answer depended on the price of the bottle and the appearance of the customer. To my surprise, they always believed me. It’s amazing what a knowing look, slight bend at the waste and a flourishing touch as you wipe the lip of the bottle with a napkin can do to assure your customers that they have, indeed, made the best choice of wine to go with their pasta primavera.
And perhaps they did. Perhaps I was better at guessing than I gave myself credit for.
All I know for sure is that I’ve always felt like a fraud when it comes to wine. It seems like there should be some knowledge I could have picked up by now, after traveling around the world and drinking wines from varying restaurants.
Mostly, I just pick out the prettiest label for the best price. But I know there’s a better way. I just know it.