These last few weeks have been a blur to say the least. I started in California for a couple of weeks of catching up with some friends (including a “significant” birthday party) and putting a few miles on the bike. Then, I was back in Philly for the return of the city’s iconic bike race and the chance to ride my own bike on some familiar roads. As soon as I got back to Houston, I hopped in a car with my older son to drive with him to Tucson (about 1,000 miles) to get him set-up in his apartment and ready for the start of his first “real” job post grad school. Then back to Northern California for another “significant” birthday and some more riding and the long flight across the country to New York to meet my wife and younger son in the city and drive him up to his boarding school where he will be for the year.

Other than that, I have not been up to much.

I feel that I have been neglecting this site, just a bit, however, so I am back today to rant a little about a couple of topics that got my blood boiling a bit.

The first was an article that I saw in Maxim (yes, I know, no one’s bastion of wine knowledge) written by Kate Dingwell, a writer whom I respect and whose articles I have found quite informative over the years. But. This one, entitled with “Wine of the Week”, was about 200 words on what is undoubtedly a wonderful wine, Gaja’s Sorì San Lorenzo Barbaresco.

I have only tried the wine once, several years ago, at a tasting in New York with Gaia Gaja, and it was glorious. So what is the problem?

Depending on the vintage, the wine retails for around $700. Seven hundred bucks! While, I am no regular reader of Maxim, but my passing knowledge of the magazine is that it is (perhaps?) a step above a tabloid magazine that focuses on young adult males. As in college students and 20-somethings.

Seven hundred dollars for a “wine of the week”? Either Kate’s intention was to just flex and show that she gets to drink wines that none of the rest of us do or she had no clue about the audience. Either way, I wonder why Maxim published it. I take that back. Likely the editors had no clue.

The next article comes from renowned food and wine writer, John Mariani, and appeared in Forbes a few months ago. While I have never met Mr. Mariani, his list of accomplishments and writing credits is impressive and far outweigh any milestones I ever hope to reach.

But.

In his article, “Wine Without Food Is Like Wearing A Tie Without a Shirt” Mr. Mariani joins the long list of “wine experts” who criticize the way we choose to drink wine. Not only does he state that drinking wine without accompanying food is pure folly, he also adds that eating anything without a perfectly paired wine also make you (and me) as dumb as a rock.

The article is so over-the-top and filled with elitism and pretension that I honestly considered for some time that it was satire. Here are a few “gems”:

“To be sure, there are plenty of wines that can serve as an aperitif, though it’s always questionable when a person just orders “a glass of dry Chardonnay,” which shows about as much discrimination as buying a pair of black socks. Even then, that Chardonnay’s middling virtues will be enhanced when sipped with snacks, canapes or appetizer, whether it’s pretzels, shrimp cocktail or sushi.

Drinking red wines all on their own is even a little ridiculous, because their flavors and tannin lack the stimulus that food, especially fat or some kind, provides. Whether it’s with a hamburger or ribeye, a red wine will always taste better than on its own.”

Need I say that sometimes I just want a glass of wine? Whether washing the car, reading a book, or watching my latest binge-worthy show, I might like a “glass of dry Chardonnay” or even (gasp) a fruity Zinfandel.

“Why would anyone eating, say, Sicilian food order a French Burgundy or serving a dish of Spanish paella with a German Riesling? After all, the grapes of a region––sometimes indigenous––grow in the same soil as the food, and that soil contains the same nutrients and minerals absorbed by the grapes. ”

There is a lot to unpack here. First, I might serve a “French Burgundy” (nice redundancy, by the way) with a Sicilian food because, I don’t know, I want to? And if I am making a paella (which I do, from time to time), the ingredients I am using in Houston, Texas, are decidedly not coming from Spain. Does that mean I should/need/must serve a Mexican wine (since much/most of our produce comes from there) or even (gasp) a Texan wine? Of course, that is absurd.

“If any rules should apply with regard to wines, it should be that they match up with the food traditionally produced by growers and cooks who know from long experience that the Pinot Noirs from California or Australia taste very little like those from France, as they should, given the widely varying terroirs of those nations.”

Huh? Other than the fact that this sentence is very long and rather poorly constructed, I could not disagree more (I think–I am assuming what he is trying to say here). If I want to open a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, with my catfish po’boy, guess what? I am going to do it. I am not going to try to figure out what is a traditional meal from the northern tip of the south island of a country I have never visited. Nor am I going to seek out what wines are made in rural Louisiana.

Yeah, no.

I am sorry Mr. Mariani. While your accomplishments and credentials are truly impressive and you have no doubt much more experience than do I, I firmly believe that people should be encouraged to expand their wine consumption experiences, not limit them; there should be fewer rules not more. And if we continue to tell potential consumers how wrong they are and how incredibly wise and learned “we” are, fewer people will drink wine as a result. I am pretty sure that is not what the industry wants.

Enough ranting. I am going to pop open a glass of $700 “dry, white, French Burgundy Chardonnay” and do a Sudoku.