Wine Tasting 🍷🍾

I recently joined a wine tasting party and every now and then we decide a theme, each of us buys a bottle, and we gather together for the fancy ritual.

I had never been interested in such activity until I joined the experience. I cannot call myself a wine expert and probably I’m very far from that. However exploring all the different angles that wine offers, it’s pretty fascinating.

Beside the different layers of flavour, the resemblance of exotic smells, the rituals around the glasses, wine is the perfect social object and brings people together since forever.

The size of a bottle is perfect for a 6 to 8 people. If you have two bottle it’s even better. Sometimes you need an utensil to open the bottle, sometimes not. That already create hierarchy: the one with the opener and the others. Humans love hierarchy, especially the basic ones, and this one is based on immediate possession (of an utensil) and the ability of an opposable thumb.

Don’t laugh at my glorification of the opposable thumb, half of the Internet economy is based on that. 👍

But the best feature that brings wine at the top of the rank of social objects is the flavour. And the reason is extremely simple: “Flavour is on opinion”. This makes it perfect for discussions, small talks, long talk, in-depth analysis of the many different blends of that flavour.

Nobody discusses the height of the bottle, the circumference of the cork, the weight of the glass, the volume of fluid contained in the flask. All of them are measurable and not very arguable, but flavours are so perfect for blah blah.