I like wine…a lot. That said, I absolutely cannot imagine drinking chardonnay. I hate it – to me it tastes like dirty water that has been sitting in an oak barrel for the past year growing mold. Blaaaak!
At a recent dinner with family, we decided to step it up and bring two nice bottles of my absolute favorite – Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio. In the age of COVID, it feels weird to offer to bring homemade food. Wine just seems safer, so why not go big?
As dinner was being made, we opened a bottle and put it in a chiller on the table. The person cooking (mussels were to be the appetizer) came out and poured a full cup and a half into a measuring cup to use for the mussels.
Oh my god! Did that just happen? Did you just use a $25 delicious wine to cook with?
I had to bite my tongue on that one.
That said, I know that you should never cook with something that you wouldn’t drink. But some things have to be saved for drinking. As we sat down to eat (the mussels were incredible by the way), said individual opened a bottle of Chardonnay to drink. Why???
But then something happened. I realized I was being an asshole. It was a lesson in the fact that we are all individuals. No two people are alike. No two people have the same taste buds. No two people are going to enjoy exactly the same things.
It’s ok…
It has to be. I reflect on the fact that anytime I receive a bottle of chardonnay, it could be a $100 bottle, I save it for cooking. I’m sure that would make this individual cringe in the same way that pouring my beloved Pinot Grigio into a cooking pan made me want to cry.
Yeah, I know this is a bit Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy. But it is a good lesson in respecting our differences.
