My go-to drinks are Scotch, bourbon/rye, cognac, and gin. I like tequila but have never gotten into it too much, and I like some other spirits as well. I used to be a big beer fan (IPAs, bitter stuff), but I went gluten-free in 2012 and I don’t need the extra carbs, either. In theory, though, I’m still a beer fan. I lived in Japan and like sake, but I would firmly classify it with wine in terms of enjoyment level (maybe a little less).
I don’t hate wine. I usually drink it with enjoyment. I’ve had mind-blowing wine on a countable number of occasions, whereas I’ve had mind-blowing (or at least very highly enjoyable spirits and beer) on an uncountable number of occasions. I am a lightweight as well–I will be in hangover territory usually at 5-6 standard drinks–so I choose my alcohol carefully. Fermented beverages also deliver worse hangovers than spirits (because they have more types of alcohols in them, whereas spirits are nearly all ethanol).
Well… first let’s talk about wine’s pros (in my view):
Good flavor to alcohol ratio. I can sometimes have a standard drink’s worth of a good spirit and feel that I haven’t gotten enough of an experience for the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed. But that varies.
Can be low-carb yet still feel substantial. Not true of beer and drinks with sugary mixers.
Goes well with a meal. Not true of spirits in general, and superior to beer in my view. The time when I enjoy wine the most these days is at a holiday meal.
Wine’s cons (in my view):
The ratio of price to pleasure is all over the place. This is a big one for me. People think of single malt Scotch as expensive and snooty, but paying $150 for a bottle of wine is not crazy for an enthusiast, and in terms of alcohol content, that is like paying $450-600 for a bottle of Scotch, which would be something very rare and expensive. Good wine can be fairly inexpensive, but great wine is usually up there in price.
You can’t buy what you like over and over. Wine by nature is constantly changing from year to year, to the point where vintage is one of the selling points. You either stock up on what you like, or you’ll never see it again. Spirits can change over time as well, but they remain more consistent. Some things, like gin, can be made the same way forever.
Wine gives me pretty terrible stomach acid.
The flavors usually do not blow me away. A few times I’ve gotten those perfectly silky tannins and yes, it was a wow. But I can get the wow any time I want from a bottle of good bourbon.
It’s all a matter of opinion, but I find wine snobbery a bit silly. They will dilate upon the green tea notes or whatever in a Zin, but to me the real action in terms of flavor and complexity is to be found in booze. (Yes, Scotch snobs also indulge in absurd tasting notes.)
Thus, to me, bottom line, wine that blows me away is hard to find, and when I find it I either have to stock up or not see it again, and the stuff that blows me away is likely to cost more than a comparable spirit. That’s why wine really doesn’t do it for me.
For me it’s the reverse: I like wine (and cider and port) but dislike spirits (and beer). I just don’t like the flavour of the alcohol. Different people have different tastes.
The wine that most recently blew me away was Santenay 2008 - about €20 a bottle.
I find I prefer beer (most of which, unfortunately, I can no longer drink) and distilled spirits over wine or mixed drinks. Which is not to say I dislike wine and mixed drinks - a well chosen wine with dinner is a delight - but they’re not my first choice.
Partly, I find wine confusing, intimidating, and expensive. I’m pretty much forced to purchase it in bottles I will never finish before they go off, which is wasteful. Beer comes in single-serving bottles. A good whisky or bourbon can be opened and enjoyed for years without losing it’s flavor or spoiling. Wine is not like that.
Seriously, I think the bottle size is a major obstacle for me. I drink infrequently and have no desire to increase my consumption. When I do have alcohol it’s typically one serving for the entire evening, maybe two. I have one glass of wine and the rest of the bottle will go to waste because I just won’t get around to having another for a week or so and by then it’s gone bad. WTF? So why bother with this when I’ll pour at least 3/4 down the sink?
That, and finances - these last few years money has been too tight to spend on unnecessities like alcohol. What I’ve had of alcohol has been gifts from friends and family, something served when I’m there for dinner, things like that.
I have no sense of smell, so wine is pretty much wasted on me. I don’t like strong liquor unless it’s mixed with enough stuff to make my (diabetic) diet rear its ugly head. Luckily, there’s still beer.
I drink beer like it’s about to be banned. I love whiskey, but my liver dosen’t, so I tend to avoid it anymore. But I love beer, I loved it from the first time I tried it, I make it at home, and I drink it all the time.
Wine? I never did develop a fondness for it. I can handle a glass of white wine at a wedding reception, but I never buy wine, or order wine.
I think my problem is with the sulfites that are put in wine in America. I can drink gin and tonics all night and feel fine in the morning, but two glasses of red wine and I feel like a truck ran over me.
I have drunk wine in Italy and other countries where the wine doesn’t have preservatives in it. I can’t remember if it had the same effect on me or not.
I guess you missed the part about how I won’t get to it the next day, I’ll probably get to it the next week, and I don’t want to drink more than I already do. I don’t get the disbelief that I consume alcohol at most twice a week, more typically once every two or three weeks and I don’t desire it more frequently than that.
Don’t get me started on how if I admit to one drink a week doctors automatically assume I’m lying and drinking three times that. That pisses me off.
If wine was typically sold in single-serving sizes I could probably get a lot more enthused about it.
Funny, I was just walking through the liquor aisles at the grocery story today (though it is Sunday in IN–no liquor sales), looking for cherries for Manhattans, and I saw these onesie packs of Sutter Home wine and other brands.
I have found that wine can last a pretty good long time in the fridge after opening. But yes, spirits last longer with no fuss, no muss.
If you put wine in a smaller bottle, and fill it so there is hardly any air in the top, it will keep a few weeks in the fridge after opening. I use 10 oz soda water bottles.
I don’t know about your market but they do make single-serve bottles and (plastic) glasses of wine, albeit they are not very good. I’m sure you know that half-sized 375ml bottles of wines are available, as well. And if you can’t drink it all by yourself, it’s a perfect pour for two, to share with a friend over a snack or meal, the way wine is meant to be drunk.
As you said, the single-serve size of wine is generally not very good. Actually, I’ve tried it and it ranges from “wretched” to “drinkable”.
Sure, share it with a friend, but my spouse drinks even less than I do, and most of my friends likewise drink very little. While all of us agree a good wine with dinner is great none of us regularly drink wine or know much about it, so as a result none of us buys a bottle.
For this I partly blame the wine snobs who seem to go to some effort to make it all very mysterious and pose a barrier to those interested in wine but not yet involved with it. That, and wine is variable - if I buy a commercially produced beer, even a microbrew, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the same thing if I buy it again. Wine is no such thing, it varies from year to year. It all starts to look like finding and buying wine is a part time job and a hassle… so I don’t bother.
Now, if you, personally, are a wine enthusiast, drink it frequently enough to finish a bottle, and don’t find the terminology and tracking vintages a problem (maybe you even enjoy it) that’s great, have at it. If you invite me over for dinner and serve wine I’ll gladly try it and probably enjoy it. I’m just saying why I, personally, don’t drink much wine and buy even less. There are things I do other people find baffling and way too much trouble so as always different strokes for different folks.
For me, all wine tastes like vinegar. I’ve sort of given it a shot, a sip here, a taste there but I really, really don’t like it. Not in like most people. IME, most people that say they don’t like something (wine, beer, coffee) will then say something like ‘so I only have it once in a while’, I never have it, ever.
I keep meaning to really sit down and give it a fair shot, do some homework, find something easy to drink and force myself to choke down a glass over the course of night. That’s how I learned to drink beer. 10 years ago, the above is basically what I said about beer, now I can drink beer just fine and discuss craft beer with the best of them. I know what I like and what I don’t like, but I’m at the point where if someone says ‘do you want a beer’ I can answer with ‘sure, whatever you have is fine’. For someone as picky as myself, that’s a turning point for me.
Having said that, I’ll drink most liquors ('cept dark stuff, I’m not a big fan of whiskey, scotch etc), I like beer, but I really hate wine.
Part of the reason I found it so easy to give up drinking was the realization that I don’t (and never really did) like the taste of beer, wine or spirits. This despite having been a big fan of each at various times in my drinking career.
I don’t hate it!