It’s only been a couple of days since my last post, my dear oenophiles, but I’m too excited to just sit around doing nothing. It’s summer and the most wonderful time of the year is almost here. I don’t mean Christmas – tsk-tsk, Christmas is for kids and shopaholics! I mean grape harvest season and the parties that go with it. To me, nothing says oenophile like drinking wine at the very vineyard its grapes have been picked from.

But before you book your tickets to a vineyard harvest party, let me share with you an eye-opener. Remember the James Bond reference I made in my last post? To some, the question whether they like their wine pure or blended might sound just as alien. Well, not to dis the popular Ian Fleming character or Martini but the question about wine is truly significant.

Pure, also called varietal, wines are made primarily from one sort of grapes. Honestly, I thought they were 100% of the same grape sort but it turns out different countries have different regulations. For example, in the US, the varietal wine must be 75% of the same grape sort. In Europe, that percentage should be at least 80% and in Argentina – 85%.

Blended wines are a mix of two or more sorts of grapes. But don’t imagine winemakers dumping whatever wine leftovers they have into a single barrel and selling it as a blend. Blended wine is the result of a complicated process of mixing and testing. It’s some kind of synergy. For example, I like the freshness of Merlot, the tannins of Cabernet Sauvignon, and the fruitiness of Cabernet Franc. How could I settle for a pure wine when I can have all three in a blended wine?

There’s something else I like to add to the wine mix to make it even better. Blackjack! I have my own private parties with a bottle of blended wine and a game of blackjack with side bets. As long as I play at the best blackjack sites, as recommended by the experts at blackjacksites.info, I can’t go wrong. After all, what harm could do combining my two greatest passions?

So, how do you like your wine – pure or blended? Me, I’ll never forget my first tasting of a blended wine. It was at a grape harvest party at a small, local vineyard. The ticket for the event bought me a tour of the vineyard, a beautiful glass and, most importantly, the chance to try all the wines as much and as often as I liked. There was an impressive buffet with cheeses of the world but these had merely a supporting role that night. I tried all the wines but one of them just stood out. It was love at first sip… oh, who am I kidding! It was love at first gulp! I’ll never forget how the crimson liquid awakened my senses. It was an enchanting blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc.

In the world of alcohol, there are more types of spirits than I can possibly count, and each one has, like, a billion ways that it can be prepared, mixed and matched with others. The sheer fact that there’s a noticeable difference in taste between a shaken and stirred martini should be enough to blow the mind of anyone who’s even remotely familiar with alcohol! Well, either that, or James Bond is just full of crap. I don’t actually know, I was always more of a wine sort of person than a martini one, but I’m getting off-point! Speaking of wine, just that has literally millions of possible variations! I mean, sure, you can group them into several dozen categories based on the sort of grape used in preparation, but really, when you take into account factors such as the soil of the region, the weather conditions at the time and the time of bottling. Based on these variables, two bottles of the same type of wine (say, pinot noir… no not that Pinot Noir!) bottled in different locations 20 years apart may taste entirely different, or the difference might be negligible. It’s up in the air.

The point I’m trying to make is that there’s actually a very good reason why there’s just so many different types of wine, and alcohol in general. And no, it’s not just because everyone wants to do their own thing… I mean, yes, that’s part of the reason, but if no one was interested in their thing, then nobody would buy it and the winery (or the manufacturer in general) would go out of business, because that’s the way capitalism works. And that’s precisely it – there’s a market for it no matter what it is. Even if it’s the cheapest boxed merlot that you find in your local supermarket or a $13,000 bottle of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, there will be someone who’s going to buy it, drink it, and hopefully, enjoy it.

And guess what! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

At the end of the day, not everybody is able to afford extremely expensive wines – at the end of the day, remember that for everyone buy a select few, alcohol is a hobby and not a lifestyle, and as such we should buy what we can afford in accordance with our disposable income. Sometimes that means more expensive stuff, other times it means boxed supermarket wine – but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as you enjoy the taste! And what’s more, some people actually prefer the taste of cheap wine, while others, even critics who get paid to do this, can’t tell the difference! Remember the experiment we told you about earlier where wine tasters were asked to distinguish between a cheap and expensive wine, and then between a white and a red wine, and none of them figured out that they were given the exact same drink every time? Yeah, that actually happened! If people who get paid to do this for a living can’t tell the difference, then maybe the whole social stigma around certain types of wine is kind of bullshit.

So, my bottom line is, don’t ever let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t enjoy something just because they don’t enjoy it. Like what you like! If it’s cheap, boxed wine, go for it! If it’s merlot, or another type of wine that’s considered unpopular, drink as much as you like, within reason! Hell, go drink friggin’ ethanol if that’s how you roll, I don’t care! Okay, my editor insists that I tell you NOT to drink ethanol, but my point still stands! Like what you like! Drink what you drink! You go be you, man/woman!