Keep it simple
Fact: Wine is grape juice fermented by yeast.
That’s really all there is to it.
People get intimidated because there’s a lot to know about wine and that’s true, but it can also be one of the simplest things. For me, it’s a constant that keeps me sane through every kind of situation. Celebrating? Wine. Bored? Wine. Stress? So much wine. Sometimes I want to think hard about it, sometimes I don’t. But I'll usually think about how every glass is made of grape juice fermented by yeast.
I’ve had wine in different apartments in different cities, with old friends that barely keep in touch and with new ones that I’m getting to know. I’ve had wine with people that turned out to be disappointments and ones that pleasantly surprised me. I’ve had wine when I’m deciding what to cleverly reply to that text until I’ve had so much that I stopped caring and replied anyway. I’ve had wine when I’m trying to revisit a time and place that I had it last, and I’ve had wine when I want to forget my crappy day. I’ve had wine from the barrel while it was aging in the winery and when I spoke to the winemakers they told me all about how they make it, they always bring up how it involves grape juice being fermented by yeast.
There are wines I love and wines I hate and wines I used to hate but learned to love. There are wines that remind me of happy times and ones that remind me of sad ones. There are wines that made me think, wines that made me laugh, and wines that made me want to stick a straw in the bottle and sit on a porch in the middle of summer. There are wines where I could tell you everything about how they’re made and what the winemaker’s favorite food is, and there are wines where all I cared to know is they’re made of grape juice fermented by yeast.
What I’m trying to say is that wine is my grown-up safety blanket. It doesn’t matter what side of the world I’m on or what kind of day I’ve had, I can always curl up at the bottom of a glass at the end of the day. It really can be as simple as that. In a world where everything feels complicated and dramatic and like it could all fall apart at any moment, it’s important to have something you can count on. For me, that thing is a simple beverage and it’s made of grape juice fermented by yeast.