In this series we are making suggestions for what you can give up for Lent if you are a wine enthusiast who observes Lent.

Give Up: Negativity

When other wine enthusiasts in a tasting room discover that we are writers, they’ll often talk with us about wine. Rarely do we hear someone commenting on a part of the country where the wines are not to their liking. But it does happen. While in a tasting room in the Prosser area of Washington, a wine enthusiast informed us that wines from Ohio are bad. This traveler was from Ohio. One can give up this type of negativity for Lent. Don’t say a wine is bad unless it has a fault and you understand what a faulty wine is. There are bad wines. But a wine isn’t bad because you don’t like it, it is bad because it is faulted. Some wine faults include aromas and tastes such as vegetal notes, rotten apples, vinegar, glue, soap, sulphur, rotten eggs, onion, cauliflower, horse, mold and cork taint. These are the things that make a wine bad. If you dislike a wine, your dislike doesn’t make the wine bad. You simply don’t like it. Condemning an entire state or wine region is a negativity that you can give up.

Some wine enthusiasts like to say a wine is bad when they mean they don’t like it.

Give Up: A Sense of Entitlement 

Some people have a sense of entitlement. How can a wine lover give up a sense of entitlement during Lent? Walk into a restaurant and order a bottle of wine for someone sitting at a table who you don’t know. The surprised look on their face is all you need to see and a delightful reward of its own.

Give up a sense of fear. When making wine a basket press had a blow out and Terry was in the direction of the blow out. We all laughed about it later.

Give Up: Fear of Failure

How can a wine enthusiast give up a fear of failure during Lent? Make some wine! If you have never made a wine before, purchase a kit and make the wine. Don’t worry about failure. If you do not like the wine, you will have only made a couple cases. Consider adding a touch of Port to the wine to improve it; however, we have heard from some winemakers, “Why waste the Port?” You can always turn your wine into vinegar. If you do make a wine from a kit, purchase the most expensive kit. There seems to be a relationship between the quality of wine you can make and the price of the kit.

Give Up: Feelings of Unworthiness or Doubt

These are good to give up for Lent. Value your personal descriptions of wine. While in a tasting room an attendant asked a visitor what she tasted in the wine. She replied, “Bananas.” The tasting room attendant quickly responded, “No, that’s wrong.” This is a good way to turn someone off to wine for a lifetime. Rather than feeling unworthy or doubtful, stick up for your personal wine descriptions. If you feel that a wine has a taste of bananas, it has a taste of bananas for you. A personal wine description is personal and based on your life experiences of smell and taste, not someone else’s.

Part 1

Cheers,
Terry & Kathy