As I sat down to write this, my first wine column, I weighed very seriously the topics I might broach. There are so many to choose from: wine and health, the American backlash onto French and other European wines, The Great Cork Debate, etc. I quickly realized that all of these topics, no matter how interesting or relevant to the world of wine, were mostly considered with the who/why/where/what of it all, but not the IF. Obviously, if you aren't drinking wine at all or not regularly, none of these topics means a thing to you. So let's talk about your drinking habits; more specifically lets talk about ramping up your drinking habits.

Wine consumption in America continues to reach new heights year after year. This popularity has been partly spurned by the release of several significant medical studies that prove positive health benefits from moderate wine consumption. Americans have also begun to realize, slowly, that wines of almost all types amplify the enjoyment of a meal or provide a relaxing and gentle uptake of alcohol at the end of the day. Despite this increased popularity, there still exists a large divide between the general acceptance of wine and the interweaving of wine consumption into the very fabric of our collective culture, as much of Europe has. Obviously, this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, but there are a few obstacles, unique to the US, that stand in our way.

American wine connoisseurship didn't really take off until about 1976 when, in a wine competition held in Paris, several Californian wines turned the world on its ear by dominating some of the most historied and esteemed European wines (namely French) of the time. The Davids that took down these Goliaths belonged to what was then the American wine elite. Wineries like Chateau Montelena, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, and Chalone were at the time, and continue to be, among America's most prestigious and expensive labels on the market. This "top down" popularization of wine in the US is actually contrary to the popularization of wine in the Old World.

Archaeological evidence places the origins of winemaking before circa 4000 B.C. For literally thousands of years in Egypt, the Middle East, and over into Europe only aristocrats had the privilege of knowing from what sort of grape their wine was made or even where it came from. The masses of commoners drank very generically described and often intentionally mislabeled wines. It was common for them to mix their wine with herbs, honey, or even sea-water. Their wine was probably much weaker than the stuff we drink today and probably not all that pleasant to drink. They drank it, frankly, for the effects and because it was safer to drink than water. Yet somehow wine drinking endured longer than any other alcoholic beverage, save beer, which seemingly evolved in parallel.

From this indiscriminant past, even the commoners began to recognize the general characteristics and quality of different winegrowing areas. Some even entered into commercial winemaking with the sole intent of serving their fellows. The "top crust" informed the more humble projects of the common man on new techniques and loaned wine drinking an aristocratic legitimacy. The common wine drinker kept wine popular and lined the pockets of the same "top crust" and made wine one the biggest commodities in almost every European country for several centuries. The notion of wine as an every-day drink has never left Europe and likely never will. America, however, has never witnessed this sort of "of the people" wine movement and so, tends to view wine differently.

The American wine boom of the last two decades has portrayed a new kind of connoisseurship, most of which focuses on the seemingly needless minutiae of wine making and enjoyment. This focus has been reinforced by The Big Business of wine and the marketing forces it can bring to bear. We seem to think now that wine cannot be enjoyed without $25 per stem crystal wine glasses or hopelessly clumsy and expensive decanters. We have also bought into the fundamentally flawed notion that more expensive always equals better or more enjoyable. We have forgotten or overlooked the vast and rich peasant wine tradition as it exists in Europe--Italy, Spain, and France, etc. We think that there is no way to enjoy a wine without swirling and sniffing for 15 minutes before sloshing it around in your mouth as you ponder the inherent virtues or flaws of what is just sour fermented grape juice. For example, it would not be hard to conceive of a happy dinner party with a nice bottle of Chianti on the table. The diners whorl the wine around in their crystal stemware. They shove their noses deep into the glass to inhale the aroma. They talk only half swallows and tend to let the wine linger and roll around on their palates. They want to appreciate every nuance of the wine and enjoy the experience fully while it lasts. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with such a picture. In fact, enjoyment of wine in that way has a very positive influence on the general on the perception of wine. However, there exists a disconnect which would be apparent if you were to inform that very same table that at that very moment in Tuscany the very man that made that very same bottle was drinking that very same wine out of what you and I would call a juice glass. There may be mild shock around the table or disbelief, at the very least. A clear indication that, most importantly, we have parsed out only the more effete and elite parts of European wine culture and forgotten the one thing most central to the rewarding enjoyment of wine: the experience and the people that surround it. Wine is still wine whether in a juice glass, a $25 crystal stem, or your cupped palms.

This disconnect has pushed most Americans in any one of three ways. First, we have the hopeless snobs that devote a sizeable portion of their income and their time lording over a collection that they can't hope to drink in their lifetimes. On the other hand we have the "common folk" who, either cheap or daunted by the complexity of wine, refuse to explore outside of the world's cheapest and most cheaply made wines. The last group, and the one to whom I'm primarily speaking, are those that enjoy the effects and the experience, but discount themselves as not rich enough, not refined enough, or not knowledgeable enough (or all of these) to actively engage with wine on a daily basis. These people have been pushed to the fringe of wine enjoyment by our skewed collective view of wine. They see all the pomp reinforced by an ever-increasing marketing machine or by the hopeless snobs and think that all that is a necessary part of the enjoyment of wine. But these are exactly the set that should be enjoying wine and its simple pleasures. It is to them I issue the battlecry Liberty Through Libation.

So let's put our best foot forward and do what we know; let's just drink for the simple joy of it. There'll be plenty of time in our lives and in this column to go over the more weighty and particular aspects of wine enjoyment. But for now, I urge you to go out tonight and try something new and affordable--something you've never seen before. Liberate yourself from the notion that you'll never "understand" a new or exotic wine. Liberate yourself from the excuse that you don't have the proper glasses, or the proper meal, or the proper company to enjoy something new. Just uncork it and drink, that simple.