bobgregg.com

One of the great things about wine, I think, is that everyone’s subjective experience of it is different. Like all great sensory experiences, your experience of a particular wine is often going to be due as much to the surroundings - the meal, the company, whatever - as to the wine itself. And you get to own that experience; whatever else it is, it’s yours.

I’m at a tasting at a local store last weekend, and they have a California Zin and an Italian Primitivo up on the counter, along with another white. Now I’ve had both of these wines (actually the same grape) before, and liked them; in fact the Primitivos I’ve had have had rustic quality that I thought was great. So I was surprised when I tried these two, one right after the other, and thought they were… off. Actually, I thought they tasted like, of all things, a fish market.

So I said so. I said, “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I swear, this tastes like a fish market. Maybe it’s something in my glass.” The pourer’s response was, well, I don’t think you’re crazy - but I don’t think you’re right either.

Now the couple right in front of me had been raving about both of these, and my pours were from the same bottle. Who knows - something in the glass? Maybe I got some sediment from the bottom of one of the bottles. Or maybe I’ve just been to more fish markets. It doesn’t matter - for whatever reason, my subjective experience was different from theirs. But I can assure that pourer, the fact that I tasted something different (and I definitely did) did not make me “wrong” - that was my experience, and right or wrong, that’s what happened. I know; I was there.