Changing tastes

I just watched Sideways for the first time, while drinking a bottle of Solaz. I figured, if I was going to watch it, I might as well participate. This movie was very much in danger of drowning in critical praise last year, making it harder to enjoy on its own merits, but I did enjoy it, and the Solaz, a Spanish wine.

There's a scene in Sideways where the main character, played by Paul Giamatti, drinks wine out of a styrofoam cup. While never having done this myself, I did witness a similar scene my senior year of college, and it's still amusing. I never really drank wine much myself until the past year, since I get it free at work occasionally, and I've enjoyed it more than I expected.

One of my favorite wine-drinking memories goes back to 1997, when I spent a semester in Melbourne, Australia, on study abroad. For some reason still unknown to me, one of the women staying in my dorm, which catered to international students, meaning there were few Australians living there, invited me up to her room to drink a box of wine with her and a few other women staying there. Boxes of wine didn't carry quite the stigma there that they do, oh, pretty much everywhere else, and I was happy to join them. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was a fun time. It never happened again.

I have very occasionally picked up a bottle of wine since then, but that may change. I was having a conversation recently about taste, and we disagreed on one point. I've come around to the belief that taste changes dramatically as we get older. For instance, I rarely eat chocolate, specifically candy bars, anymore, but I loved them as a child. We always had candy in the cupboard when I was growing up, and I know I ate some every day. Not anymore. Maybe once a week on average, do I have anything chocolate other than milk. The way I see it, I've grown out of the taste for that kind of thing. In the same way, I believe we sometimes grow into a taste for something. For instance, alcohol.

When I was a kid, my father would sometimes give me a sip of beer, and I'm sure it amused him when I made a face and said it was gross. Needless to say, I no longer think beer is gross. I've grown into the taste for beer, wine, etc., some more than others. When I was young, my father never drank any other alcohol than beer, at least in my memory, but in the last ten years, he too has grown an appreciation for wine.

I don't think anybody's fooling themselves when they find a taste for alcohol as an adult. Tastes change. Just as kids who won't eat broccoli grow into adults who become vegan, I've found a taste for red wine, when time was I couldn't stand the stuff.

Drink up.