You don’t need to learn everything there is to know about wine in order to enjoy it once you understand that how you feel while buying it influences your perception.
We all love drinking wine, but most of us hate buying wine. Why is selecting a bottle from a retail store shelf or a restaurant wine list so fraught with trepidation? Choosing your next bottle should be a joyful pleasure not an onerous chore.
Your experience of a wine begins when you buy it, not when you pop the cork, fill your glass, and take your first sip. What you perceive as flavor is only partially due to the sensory information available to you at that moment. Your brain also relies upon the setting and context, your prior knowledge of the wine if any, and the level of excitement and anticipation you may be feeling. The way we feel about a wine can actually alter our brain chemistry as we consume it and change how we experience it for good or ill.
It’s not just about what’s in the glass. What’s in our head matters, too.
You’re in a wine shop. You stand in front of a veritable wall of wine, bottles lined up side by side, row after row on shelves from floor to ceiling. You’re in a fine dining establishment. The sommelier drops a wine list as thick as the Oxford English dictionary on your table with a resounding thud. You’re in the grocery store, stopping to pick up dinner on your way home from work. After the day you’ve had there is no way you’re not going to be drinking wine tonight, but you’re in a hurry so you grab the first bottle you see and toss it in the cart.
Behavioral scientists have studied human decision making extensively, seeking to understand why and how we make the choices that we do. It turns out humans are predisposed – hardwired by evolution – to think in certain ways, particularly when faced with a lack of information and a shortage of time.
The decision making processes inherited from our Paleolithic ancestors take two different forms. Type 1 processing operates automatically, rapidly, and with little to no conscious effort. It relies heavily on “gut feelings” and immediate context to make rapid sense of the world. Type 2 allocates attention to mental operations, logic, complex calculations, and self-control. It is slow, deliberate, and requires a lot of metabolic energy. For the sake of efficiency, Type 1 is our default mode, always on. Type 2 is on standby in case higher order thinking and analysis are required for problem solving. The two processing types work in tandem to maximize survival and minimize energy consumption. Unfortunately, what was adaptive and essential to survival for our forebears in the Pleistocene is less so today. Early humans never had to shop for wine.
The modern marketplace actively defeats both our systems for making decisions under less than ideal conditions. In an average wine shop, shelf talkers displaying critics’ point scores or staff recommendations clamor for your attention. Hoping for more information, you scrutinize the labels front and back, inundated by unpronounceable place names, unfamiliar grape varieties, and technical information you have no reference for. Overwhelmed by too many options and fearful of making a mistake, you grab a bottle that looks vaguely familiar, hoping you haven’t paid too much or too little. You take it home, resigned to disappointment.
Why do we settle time and time again for a bottle that fails to delight us? It turns out that humans by nature place greater value on avoiding loss than realizing potential gain. In other words, we would rather purchase an acceptably mediocre wine than risk our hard earned money on a more expensive bottle that we ultimately don’t like.
We don’t have to remain at the mercy of our biology. We can “hack” our own brains by consciously shifting from mitigating risk to anticipating reward, comprehensively altering our experience of wine. Rediscover joy in your glass by shopping with intention, establishing a strong emotional connection between purchase and consumption. Wine genuinely tastes better if you take pleasure in buying it.
Cultivate a curiosity about wine. The virtue of this is that it doesn’t matter how much you know, only that you are open to learning something new. Every great wine has a story – the unique history of a particular place or culture, an ancient grape variety saved from extinction, a maverick winemaker breaking all the rules. Your connection to that story, your investment of attention, your engagement with the wine is what will elevate your experience to something truly transcendent.
Finally, don’t fear making a mistake. It is ok to buy the “wrong” bottle or try something new that you may not like. We learn more from the wines that challenge our preconceptions than those that reinforce them.
WINE OF THE WEEK
2024 Eulogio Pomares Pedraneira Rías Baixas Val do Salnés Albariño
Two different wine buyers from two different shops recommended this wine to me on the same day. I didn’t recognize the name of the producer. It was only later that I discovered Eulogio Pomares is the winemaker for Bodegas Zárate, one of my three favorite Albariño producers (in case you are wondering the other two are Bodegas Albamar and Do Ferreiro). This is his side project, which gives him the opportunity to explore experimental vinification methods, rare plots, and forgotten Galician grape varieties. (Insider’s tip: If you hear about a famous vintner’s “side project” it’s a good bet the wines are worth seeking out.)
The grapes come from a single vineyard in the coolest of the five subzones of the appellation, with some vines a literal stone’s throw from the ocean. This is the historic home of Albariño, and the wines from here are considered a benchmark for the varietal.
Pull the cork and you can practically hear the cries of gulls and the sounds of waves lapping on the shore. Saline. Intensely mineral. Electric. Full of coiled intensity.
Vintage note: The 2025 vintage has been released so you may run across either vintage or both if you are exceedingly lucky. The 2024 was cooler, more classic. The 2025 warmer and riper for those who prefer a bit more generous fruit. If you find either vintage in magnum, buy it, and open it for your family and friends at Thanksgiving.
WINE REFERENCE OF THE WEEK
Goode, Jamie. I Taste Red: The Science of Tasting Wine. University of California Press, 2016.
Jamie Goode is a veteran British wine writer and unequivocally the best translator of the science behind winemaking and wine tasting for the less scientifically literate masses. He renders what can sometimes be technically opaque, accessible and fun. See especially Chapter 3 Wine and the Brain.