Nobody looks both ways and whispers, “Do you have any DRC?” when they come into my wine shop.
After all, what’s to be embarrassed about? Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is a historic and fascinating Burgundy vineyard dating to 1232. It produces some of the world’s most revered and expensive red wines. It also happens to produce an inexpensive and popular chocolate wine.
About once a week, a customer walks in and sheepishly says, “I’m sorry. Do you have that chocolate wine?”
On the face of it, these two styles of wine — with chasm-size differences in price and history — have nothing in common. But are they really that different?
For about nine months, ever since I first tried this peculiar libation, I’ve threatened my learned colleagues in the wine trade that I would write a column about chocolate-flavored red wine. Their reactions were predictable, from rolled eyes to peevish arguments explaining why chocolate wine is not wine and probably should be a banned substance.
OK, I get it. Chocolate wine is a wine in much the same way that Bartles & Jaymes is a wine — more of a concoction than a true fruit of the vine. And I can’t say that this slightly alcoholic chocolate drink does anything for me. At its worst, chocolate wine is inoffensive.
It gets down to this: Why do we drink wine? I leave the answer to a smarter man than me, Benjamin Franklin, who said, “[Wine is] a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
If we drink a wine merely to impress those around us, then perhaps we are missing the point ... and also are likely making a horse’s rear end of ourselves. As I take these customers to the corner of the store where we keep our selection of chocolate wines, I ask them why they feel the need to apologize for their selection. They say they fear people will ridicule them.
I do my best to put them at ease, but I understand their concern. I have little doubt that my colleagues will dismiss this column immediately after seeing the headline and I will lose readers who will say: “Feh! I don’t want to read anyone who writes about chocolate wine.”
But this is not about chocolate wine or, for that matter, renowned wines from Burgundy. This a meditation about wine and the happiness it brings. If friends or associates have designs on what should and should not make us happy, I have a two-word phrase for them today: Back off!
Drink what you like. Drink what makes you happy. There certainly is enough variety of wine to satisfy us all. If it takes a $12 bottle of chocolate wine to put a smile on your face, guiltlessly rejoice in that simple pleasure. There are crazier wine-based concoctions out there. Take Lillet, Dubonnet or vermouth, for instance.
Whether it is dragging stones in Giza to build a pyramid or grinding out another traffic-laden commute home on I-285, life was, is and will remain tough for most of us. It’s little wonder to me that simple alcoholic beverages like beer and wine have been with us for thousands of years. In moderation, they make life bearable and improve our mood. I asked one of those slightly-embarrassed customers why she liked chocolate wine and I will give her the last word.
“Gil, when I get home at 8 o’clock some nights, I just want to kick off these [darn] heels and have a glass of something to keep me from going crazy. I love this stuff. It makes me happy.”
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ChocoVine, Holland
$12
One thumb mostly up
It smells like milk chocolate, with a hint of alcohol, and tastes like dark chocolate milk, with a hint of alcohol in it. I’ve had better chocolate milk, but I’ve also had worse tasting wines.
Note: Wines are rated on a scale ranging up from thumbs down, one thumb mostly up, one thumb up, two thumbs up, two thumbs way up and golden thumb award. Prices are suggested retail as provided by the winery, one of its agents, a local distributor or retailer.
Gil Kulers is a certified wine educator and a wine consultant for Tower Beer, Wine & Spirits. You can reach him at gil.kulers@winekulers.com.
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