Don’t hate me just because I’m white
Do you only drink red wine? WHY!? Listen, if you’ve really drunk your way through a fair number of the wines from various new world AND old world white appellations - all the varieties, styles, etc., and still don’t care for white wines, fine - very few folks like EVERYTHING, but it seems to me some people still seem to think that white wine is somehow a lesser thing, a wine for beginners or enological lightweights. I’m not sure even what gave rise to this somewhat confounding stance, but I’ve come across it more times than you might imagine.
Let me ask you this…what would you drink with a meal comprised of an appetizer of cauliflower and Asiago fritters, a Fettuccine Alfredo first course, and a baked, herb-stuffed John Dory as a main? I’d choose a richer styled (but unoaked) Verdicchio Castelli di Jesi or a more restrained Carneros or Russian River Chardonnay but I would find the choice of a Cali Mertage or a Ribera del Duero or even a Pinot Noir with such a board pretty hard to swallow. Sure, “drink what you like” always rules the day, but just because you like X with Y, doesn’t mean that you couldn’t like Z with Y a whole lot better.
Many of the white wine bashers I know are perhaps not surprisingly, men. Somehow, for some reason, within the testosterone besotted set, white wine is viewed as a drink for women and sissies. Poached chicken breasts with a lemon cream sauce? RED WINE! Chicken noodle soup? RED WINE! Watching the game? RED WINE! Patio roosting in July? RED WINE! Come on folks, get over it. There’s more to life than tooth-staining Cabernet.
But all snide lampooning aside, there are indeed a few too many thin, vinegary, and ultimately flavorless pale nasties floating around, as well as an incontrovertible GLUT of sweetish, flabby, and ultimately insipid whites flying at us from TV screens, billboards, and glossy magazine ads all day long. All things being equal, white wines are cheaper to produce, so to those more concerned with building their personal wealth than a quality winery, white wine production surely provides the best return on their investments, but with just a little effort I’m SURE that even the most dyed-in-the-wool ink-drinker can find a white wine to suit his (or her) palate. When you get down to it, there are just too many cool wines out there to cut your choices by a factor of one half right out of the gate. If you don’t know where to start, pay us (or your local wine shop a visit, describe your malady to a wine consultant, and get in the white wine game. Hey, it could be worse - some day you might actually be forced to ask for directions - WITH your wife in the car.
TOM CIOCCO
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Another great article. I try to get “Guys” into white wine on a fairly regular basis. It’s very difficult as there are many husband and wives out there where the husband drinks nothing but red and the wife drinks nothing but white.
Comment by Brandon M — December 27, 2006 @ 11:41 am
Brandon M-
I’ve seen the exact same thing - almost like wines have genders…men drinking white wine is like him wearing a pink cashmere sweater, and women drinking red wine is tantamount to them chomping on a fat cigar.
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — December 27, 2006 @ 12:20 pm
I drink about 1 bottle of white for every 2 reds. There is a company branding a “macho” red wine and not a white one, because they claim it is not manly enough or something idiotic like that. I’m assuming they would have even less respect for rose then, even though it’s closer on the continuum to a red wine. It’s not like Lee Marvin was drinking pinot noir in those westerns. My feeling is that this is largely the effect of men’s magazines (Men’s Health, Muscle& Fitness, Maxim, GQ, Stuff, etc.) that are basically passing themselves off as some sort of guide to being a man. They tell you what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, how to have sex, how to exercise, and anything else that they can think of. I don’t think that women who drink red wine are viewed differently at all.
Comment by Mark — December 27, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
Mark-
For me, it might be more like three to one, red to white, but that’s of course contingent on menu, season etc…the strangest part of the “white wine is for girls” phenomenon is that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of vested interest behind making red wines more appealing to “manly men”, unless of course you can see your way clear to believing in some secret cabal of Douro/Ribera/Napa/Barossa growers trying to convince men that red wine “puts lead in your pencil” or some other such drivel…
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — December 27, 2006 @ 1:46 pm
In our tasting rooms plenty of women request ‘red only’ - we seldom hear ‘white only’ from either gender. I think the ‘women drink white’ thing was a passing phase that we have already finished.
Also, we have implemented a ‘reds only’ program for our wine club precisely because of this popular demand for reds these days. My observation is that the current demand for red is not gender specific and that there isn’t any sort of non-macho stigma - people just want reds.
I have noticed that some of the fuller Rhone style whites - Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier - can appeal to the red wine only drinker, if you can get them to try them…!
Comment by eljefe — December 27, 2006 @ 3:14 pm
Eljefe-
I didn’t mean to overplay the gender thing, but at least in my experience, it’s still there, but I also agree that both men and women are drinking more and more reds, and fewer and fewer whites…but for me the question still remains: Why?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — December 27, 2006 @ 3:22 pm
eljefe
You need to hang out around here becasue it is VERY REAL and VERY ALIVE.
Comment by Brandon M — December 27, 2006 @ 7:55 pm
Actually… although I also lean very heavily towards red, its my wife that will not drink a white .. she’ll taste one, but if I open a bottle, its mine to finish. So.. whether a frizzante or still, if I open it .. I have to either finish it or cap it.. hoping it will last till another day. Possibly one reason why I do enjoy a nice German or Alsatian Riesling in the Summer since it has less alcohol.. I can have one or two glasses .. and then still join her in a red for dinner
Comment by R. Beaudin — December 28, 2006 @ 10:27 am
Actually, in the heat of the summertime I tend to drink more whites - Sauv. Blanc being my favorite. Even a dry Rose from Provence hits the spot when the humidity kicks in.
But that’s in the privacy of my own home. I’ll admit, I cave when I’m out in public.
Baby steps, man, baby steps.
Comment by Gary — December 28, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
Though I love red wines, I am now drinking about 50% or more white. The reason is food. The older I get, the more of the food I eat goes better, to my taste, with white. I eat beef or lamb for dinner at most once or twice a week. Asian food, chicken, pork and fish just work better with whites. Oh, and the person who said “buy on bread and sell on cheese” was selling white wine, not red.
Comment by GeneV — December 31, 2006 @ 4:50 pm