Seven things that should be banned from the holiday wine experience

No, wine shaming is not OK, and six other things we don’t need when it comes to holiday wine

"I know I saw a bottle of white zinfandel in there. I demand to know who brought it!"

Almost everyone who writes about wine – whether Winestream or Mainstream Media – laments how difficult it is to do wine for the holidays.

Phooey.

So when I saw this post from Lifehacker, I thought: We need something like that for holiday wine. Hence, seven things that should be banned from the holiday wine experience:

1. Bragging about how cheap the wine was. Even the Wine Curmudgeon is sometimes guilty of that, for which I am always severely reprimanded. The point, or course, is that the wine is enjoyable. Price only matters if someone asks.

2. Bragging about how expensive the wine was. The WC has never done this – but those of you who have done it know exactly who you are.

3. Bringing a bottle of wine to dinner that no one but you has ever heard of or could possibly like -- because, of course, the goal is to show you know more about wine than anyone else.

4. Bringing Two-buck Chuck, Winking Owl, or any of the others in the $3 wine reviews to dinner because they’re cheap and for no other reason. It's a holiday, dammit. It’s OK to spend $10 for wine for the people that you care most about.

5. Wine shaming (see No. 3). In other words, when you see a bottle of white zinfandel or Apothic on the table, it’s not OK to snigger, point to the bottle, and make a snarky comment.

6. Launching into an interminable discussion about wine and food pairings and how you spent three weeks and consulted seven sommeliers to find the perfect wine for this particular holiday dinner (see No. 3 again). No one cares. And why should they?

7. "Taste this, it's really good," and making someone try something they obviously don't want to try. Wine is not a mud pie to force on your little sister, so don’t treat it like one.

Photo: CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash