🌍 Is wine more than a drink, and why does it both divide and unite cultures❓
🎙️ On the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Sarah Heller, Master of Wine.
🔗 Link in the bio.
www.nataliemaclean.com/blog/more-than-a-drink-why-wine-divides-unites-cultures-with-sarah-heller-mw/
🤔 Why do some cultures embrace wine as a cultural expression while others see it simply as a beverage?
🎨 Sarah says that the part of the Italian wine industry she works with is much more comfortable viewing wine as a cultural product, even as an artwork.
🍷 In contrast, she finds that many Anglo-Saxon environments push back against that idea.
🧠 She stresses that these cultures are not naïve about wine’s dangers.
🍇 Wine has always carried the potential for excess and madness, as seen in classical references to Bacchus or Liber, but it also carries the potential for generosity and redemption.
📜 Can fine wine actually be defined, or is it something subjective to be debated?
🖊️ Sarah says she retreats to a dry definition.
🌟 Fine wine is a wine with the potential to improve over time and therefore worth keeping in circulation.
🚫 This avoids subjective debates about intervention or ideology.
💵 For her, it is grounded in market impact and collective agreement that the wine will maintain value, supported by fundamental quality that allows it to hold together and ideally improve over time.
🧱 Why is it so important to identify both the aroma and structure of wines when tasting?
🎓 Sarah recalls her first-year Master of Wine assessment, where she misidentifies Piemonte wines as Spanish because the oxidative style and oak influence mislead her nose.
✅ The wines, Barolo, Barbera, and Dolcetto, later seem obviously Italian.
🌿 She notes that if she had focused on structure rather than aroma alone, she would not have confused Barolo tannins with Tempranillo.
⚓ The experience teaches her that structure can anchor a tasting when aroma is misleading.
🍷 Do you see wine as more than just a drink❓
Let me know in the comments 👇