Dad ! Can you change the music your streaming into the house? No one wants to hear your Classical Music ! Can you put something we can enjoy?
Sound familiar? I get this all the time when I listen to my favorite classical or even Jazz music. Why? Classical and Jazz is not easy listening. It's more serious, it's more complex...I minored in music in college....and to my kids, it's boring. They want to dance, they want to sing along. They want to have fun. I want to get lost in my music. They just want my music to get lost.
The wine industry and specifically Wine Educators have made wine the classical music of beverages and done this with misguided marketing and promoting wine programs that seem like piano lessons instead of just listening to enjoyable music.
For your consideration, I just saw an advertisement from the WSET (that's the Wine and Spirit Educational Trust...an educational group that teaches and certifies(!) people to speak and teach about all things wine) about a course you can take (I'm not making this up) about HOW TO SPEAK AND ORDER WINE LIKE A SOMMELIER!
You need a special language to understand wine? Is this a secret club? Maybe so. Afterall, think of another beverage that has it's own special opener for you to get to your beverage, has it's own special glasses to drink with and has rules about what food goes with what wine at what temperature to drink it and how long to let it be opened before you drink it. Jeez.
Why do you need an advanced course to explain wine? Do we have a beef or seafood sommelier course to teach us how to speak and order like a chef? Does a beer sommelier walk you through how to pronounce and order Pilsner at your favorite bar? If you order a Bourbon does the bartender come out from behind the bar and try to help you pick something off the list should you not gone to Bourbon classes? How about food? Does a Beef Sommelier come out with a menu to help you understand filet, ribeye or hamburger? Hell no.
People get to eat and drink what they want unless it's wine. Then it's back to school you go, where some over-eager educator comes out to discuss matching your wine with your food or discuss terroir or malolactic fermentation or what you should smell and taste and even worse, why.
These trends are annoying and it's killing the industry. The Wine Education system tells people what they are drinking. What they should drink. How they should drink it and what to drink it in ...but rarely ask the most important question to a customer...What do you like...what do you regularly drink?...and then deliver that.
Until the Wine Industry, Educators and others selling product gets off it's high horse and just let people drink what they want with no boundaries and stop acting like wine and learning about wine is a college course you have to take and pass, wine will become more of a scarcity on the American Dinner Table and be relegated as a special event beverage that only their Grandparents can explain.
