Love letter to dep wine
Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve. Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
Charles Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris
Some say life is too short for bad wine. Life is too short for many things; it is definitely too short for no wine. So when it’s past 10 p.m. on a Saturday and you find yourself with a melancholic thirst, dep wine will have to do.
It is a drink of convenience, of frugality, of those who don’t know better and those who do. The acrid taste of a $10 bottle might make the weak-willed turn their noses up, but to love wine is to love all wine. There’s a bottle for every occasion, and you won’t bring champagne to get drunk at Parc Lafontaine.
All wines are for sharing, and sure, a Beaujolais is nice between friends, but dep wine is the bottle you bring to a house party for everyone to drink out of. Pour it in a mug, or straight into the mouth of someone you just met. There’s a wine for every occasion, and each is as important.
Buying it is a breeze. Why worry about Merlot vs Chardonnay when all it will taste is different shades of bad. Avoid the Keep Calm wines out of principle, but experience a shopping free of condescension and confusion. Just hum along to your favourite Billy Joel song as you ask yourself whether you want a bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a bottle of rosé instead?
In wine, there is truth, and the truth in dep wine is that life without wine is sad.
This article originally appeared in The Food Issue, published November 3, 2020.
_600_375_90_s_c1.jpg)
