Enjoy What You Enjoy

I once gave a friend a case of Napa Valley red wines, all priced from $25 to $40 a bottle. After she'd had the wines for some time, I asked her how she was enjoying them. She seemed a little reluctant to talk about it and I discovered after a little prodding that she, her husband and some neighbors who enjoyed drinking wine together had conducted a blind tasting of some of the wines I had given her plus the infamous "Two Buck Chuck." The winner? You guessed it.

I would suspect that most wine experts/professionals/writers would roll their eyes at anyone preferring Two Buck Chuck, but I thought, if a $2 bottle of Central Valley wine satisfied them more than a $40 Napa Valley Zinfandel, more power to them (and to the producers of Two Buck Chuck) – think about how much more money they would have for vacations, flat screen TVs or whatever brings them bliss. It wouldn’t be my choice, but if it works for them…

I also knew that my friend -- like someone who graduates from a thin, soggy McDonald's hamburger to a made-to-order restaurant burger of quality beef and real cheese -- would taste her way through my case of quality wines and probably have a greater feel for the nuances and layers of flavor in such wines as well as some curiosity about what other wines taste like. She might actually trade up after the experience. Someone who graduates from McDonald's to a better burger might never try the $30 foie gras-stuffed burger at the pinnacle of hamburger cuisine, and my friend may never ascend to Bordeaux First Growths or Burgundy Grand Crus, but she would probably appreciate wines beyond Two Buck Chuck someday.

And even if that’s not true, she’s enjoying the wine she and her friends like -- that’s what important. Sometimes I wish my tastes would be satisfied by a $2 bottle -- it would make my life easier and my wine drinking habit much less expensive.

What do I think of Two Buck Chuck? It’s like a McDonald’s hamburger: a quick, easy way to sate your hunger, but you’re not exactly left yearning for that next bite… or bottle. But if I needed an inexpensive wine to serve at a fundraiser, I’d be buying it by the case.