Why I Drink the Whole Damn Bottle of Wine (Instead of Just a Glass)
As a Certified Sommelier, it pains me to say this. But it’s true.
Wine is not healthy for you. It has alcohol in it. And alcohol is not healthy for you.
And yet when I drink wine, I drink the whole damn bottle. Every drop, every time.
I have never been a fan of pretending, even with things I wish were true. Fat free cheese is not cheese. Tofurky is not turkey. And no matter how hard I believe otherwise, a dozen SideCar donuts will make me fat. So when I drink a whole bottle of wine, I know damn good and well it’s not “healthy.” Yet I gleefully choose to do it, even though I’m a health and fitness guy.
Why?
Back in 1991, Sixty Minutes, when they were somewhat honest, did a show entitled The French Paradox. The French Paradox states that the French have relatively low rates of heart disease despite consuming a diet high in saturated fats, such as butter, cheese, and red wine. When 60 Minutes aired that show, sales of red wine spiked dramatically in the US, because people wanted to believe that drinking red wine and eating cheese somehow lowered your risk of heart disease.
In other words, they were given permission to misbehave, permission to pretend. That misbehavior was rocket fuel to the already ascending red wine scene in Napa Valley, and that year, for the very first time red wine outsold white wine. Napa cult wines exploded, money poured in, prices skyrocketed, and the Napa Valley we know and love and argue about today came into its own (Caymus sucks, Chapellet rules).
But was it healthy? Not by a long shot. No matter how much people may pretend, it doesn’t change the reality that wine is physically unhealthy for you.
The key word, however, is “physical.” Because when you stop viewing wine for what it is not, and start appreciating it for what it is, your life will change. Sadly and strangely, the whole wine industry does a terrible job of explaining what wine- good wine- really is.
They are bizarrely focused on what it is not, and it’s no wonder sales of wine are dramatically declining. The “French Paradox” is as long gone and forgotten as a world without tattoos and obesity.
Just about all of us who are “in the industry,” got here by happenstance. We inadvertently bumbled onto a “magical bottle” of wine, and were hooked. Not just hooked, but obsessed. Some say haunted. That doesn’t happen with beer. Or cocktails. Or even fine whiskey- and I was an avowed “Whiskey Man,” who swore I would never, ever, ever, ever get into fermented grape juice. And then I hit that one magical bottle, quite by accident.
For the first time I experienced wine for what it is, instead of chasing it for what it is not.
It literally changed my life.
I am going to tell you about that magical bottle and what it was. But to truly understand and experience the magic of great wine, you have to understand what it is not.
Wine is not a health food or a superfood. It is fermented grape juice, and not physically healthy for you. It makes you dull, slow, fat and interferes with your sleep like any alcoholic beverage does.
Wine is not a means to get a buzz or get you drunk. It certainly can, but if you use it for that, especially the cheap stuff, you will pay with a hangover for the ages. You can get drunk on beer or hard seltzers or cheap margaritas. Or trashcan punch, made from Everclear and Kool Aid. But if you use wine to get drunk or buzzed, you will forever miss the point.
Wine is not a fashion statement or a means to make you superior to others just because you can drink something they can’t. I know extremely rich people who drink some of the most expensive wines ever made, and they totally miss the point. The enjoyment goes right over their heads as they stick their noses in the air. They cheat themselves by showing off, and the wines withhold their true magic. True wine lovers are the antithesis of “wine snobs.”
When you acknowledge what something is not- no matter how much you want to believe- you start to unlock its authenticity. When you do that with wine, the true magic happens.
Wine is the only beverage that changes and evolves in the glass as it interacts with oxygen and your neurology adjusts to the changing flavors. It’s the only beverage that tells a story as you go through a bottle. And when you listen to that story, you experience things few people ever will. It’s not the liquid wine that’s important. It’s the story it tells, and how hard you listen. True wine appreciation is learning how to listen to the wine.
That’s not pyscho-babble from a prissy Sommelier. Hell, I served on two nuclear submarines in the early 90’s, the USS Pargo (SSN 650) and USS Newport News (SSN 750), I worked in the Oilfield on the North Slope of Alaska, and I got into the online marketing business when it was the wild, wild West. None of those are for sissies or woo-woo crybabies. They require mental toughness.
But those hard core experiences taught me one thing- the importance of authenticity. If you’re not authentic, if you’re not real, people won’t follow you, they won’t listen to you, they won’t buy from you, and they won’t respect you. That’s why when wine called, I listened. It’s one of the last few authentic things in this phony world.
Even some cheap wines can tell a story. The bubblegum flavored Sutter Home White Zinfandel, the choice of tipsy grandmothers everywhere, tells a story. Zinfandel is not a white grape, it’s a red grape. And “White Zinfandel” is not a white wine, it’s a rose wine, made from the Zinfandel grape. But when Sutter Home announced White Zinfandel in the late 70’s and it gained rapid popularity, that saved many old Zinfandel vineyards from destruction because no one was drinking Zinfandel then. Those vineyards now deliver true “Old Vine” Zinfandel that is one of the best values available today- think Turley, Ridge, and Biale Black Chicken.
It's not a bad story, but it’s incomplete. It’s missing one important element.
You.
The best wines- which don’t have to be expensive, but can’t be cheap- tell a story with you as the main character. And it’s always a story you never see coming until you’re in the middle of it. For me it starts at the end of the first glass, hits its stride around glass three, and ends in glory with the last sip of glass 5. For those of you counting at home, there are five, 5 oz glasses in a bottle of wine.
A well made wine grabs your attention as you go through the first glass. Pay no attention to the first sip or the first few sips. I’ve had wines start out as tangy on the front and bitter on the end, an almost unpleasant experience, then explode into magnificence by the end of glass two.
I once drank a bottle of Dunn Howell Mountain 2019- goes for $220 retail- that started out like this. It was very iffy through the first two glasses, and I was starting to get grumpy. Then it took off like a rocket ship, leaving me with a feeling of what I can only call “irrational exuberance” for hours afterwards. I called it “the Walter White Wine,” because it followed the trajectory of Breaking Bad- the first two seasons (glasses) were ho hum, season 3 (glass 3) took off like a rocket, and the final two seasons (glasses) were some of the best TV (wine) I’d ever seen (drank).
That’s why you drink the whole bottle. It can start slow, then accelerate. You don’t get that with a glass. Not even two. You get it as you go through the bottle, as it evolves and changes. Good wine begins to activate your mind- your senses have to keep up with the evolution of the wine. And as your mind activates, the wine- not the alcohol- starts to get into regions of your mind other beverages never will. Memories you haven’t thought of in decades start to appear. Feelings and emotions you’ve never experienced suddenly come over you. Your mind starts to stretch and bend.
Each bottle is different in its own way, in the story it tells with you in it. You don’t forget these magical wine experiences. They stay with you, they haunt you. And they are never exactly repeated. Each one is a one-off. If you try to chase it, try to repeat it, you will be inevitably disappointed. If you chase wine, it will run from you. You have to let it come to you, and you have to embrace whatever experience it brings, no matter how different it is than you imagined.
I had this happen to me for the first time in 2015 with a bottle of Chateau Arthemis 2005 from Cotes de Castillon, to the east of St. Emilion in Bordeaux. I had no idea what the wine was, or if the region was any good. I’d heard the French made good wine and “Bordeaux” sounded classy, so I picked it up at Total Wine for New Year’s Eve to go with a huge T-Bone steak. My plan was to stay inside, stay safe, eat a big steak with some wine, then drink some fine whisky.
The wine had other plans.
By then I knew enough to serve it at the right temperature (I like my full bodied reds at 55 F), in the right glass (a Riedel Bordeaux glass) and decant it for at least 30 minutes. Other than that I had no clue if it was Cab or Merlot or Zinfandel or Malbec or some other variety. It was red, it was from France, and red wine goes with a big steak.
From the first sip on, the wine took me to another place. I was literally startled at the mouthfeel- it was smooth, elegant, silky, velvety…and calming. It was the right wine at the right place at the right time. With every sip I took, I felt more calm, more peaceful, serene, mellow, whatever other adjective you want to use. Everything- and I mean everything- felt right in the universe. Annoyance, frustration, irritation- the normal emotions every business owner feels- were 100% gone as I went through the bottle. It was surreal.
100% calm and 100% surreal is the only way to describe how the wine made me feel. I reveled in it. I soaked it up. And I knew I’d never feel quite like that again. Ever.
Was I thinking about aromas and flavors and tannin and acid and structure? I was not. All of those were there, but they came together in such a way that I thought nothing of them. They took a background to the calm they all made me feel.
I felt that way not only as I went through the bottle, but for the rest of the night. And ten years later, the memory of that magical wine experience is still with me.
That’s why I drink the whole bottle. For the unique experience only a whole bottle can bring. Chateau Arthemis is not a particularly special producer, and Cotes de Castillon is not a premier wine region in Bordeaux. It’s good, but it’s not Pomerol or St. Emilion or Margaux or St. Julien. The bottle was only $50. But it was a well made wine that crept up on me when I least expected it.
Of course I got three more bottles the next week, and none of them were close to the same. They were just wine. I was chasing an experience. The wine ran from me.
So I smartened up and let the wine come to me. I drink a full bottle, once a week, from beginning to end. I accept that it’s physically unhealthy, but I focus on my health six days a week so I can offset any ill effects from the alcohol. I rarely drink the same bottle. There are so many great wines from so many great regions, and not nearly enough time in this life to drink them all. I choose wisely, and let the wine come to me. Whatever experience comes, I embrace it. Sometimes nothing comes. But usually it does.
That one experience with Chateau Arthemis so moved me that I eventually pursued the Court of Master Sommeliers Certified Sommelier and passed the exam in October of 2024, one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.
I did it for one primary reason- I wanted to discover more magical bottles to drink for myself. And along the way I discovered I truly enjoy recommending those bottles to other people too. After all, I can only drink one bottle a week and recover the next day. But I can hear other people’s stories about the magical bottles I recommended to them every day. And that might just be the healthiest, most rewarding thing of all.
What I’m Drinking This Week (and Why)- Video
Here’s my Great Wine Recommendation for this week- any wine from the Pomerol region in France, especially Chateau Clinet 2016. But rather than just write about it, I’d rather show it to you. I made a great YouTube video, all about the region of Pomerol, the styles and varietals of the wines, and most importantly, I crack open a bottle of the Chateau Clinet and taste it. No, I don’t drink the whole bottle on camera- no one wants to see me do that for three or so hours- but I most certainly drank the whole bottle after I made the video, and it was magnificent.
Watch the video here: