Always Holding Wine

Oak + Fort dress (similar)
Melissinos sandals (similar)
Celine sunglasses
Linjer rings (c/o) (similar)
Stella & Dot earrings
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I love the way wine looks in photos. I love the bottles and the detail that goes into the design of the labels, especially traditional French ones. Equally, I love the way the liquid looks in a glass – and the way stemware looks even before there’s wine in it.

Basically, from an aesthetic point of view, I’m very into wine. But I’m not actually a great drinker of it, or at least for most of my life I wasn’t. Growing up, I remained indifferent to alcohol when most of my friends were starting to experiment with it. Of course I was willing to try most things. But I rarely found anything that made me want to go back for more. I went through a period in university where I ordered vodka and Seven-Up if we went to a bar, simple because compared to other options, I found its flavour the least objectionable.

Yep, that was my baseline for choosing drinks – what tastes the least bad.

Even when we moved to France, while Ian was taking courses on wine in school, I remained relatively disinterested in the subject. At our local brasserie, I always ordered a single glass of the same rose. I invested no time in figuring out what I liked. There were too many options, and it was much simpler just to conclude that I didn’t like anything that much at all.

Occasionally, I think back and wonder what changed and when. But truthfully, I can’t exactly put my finger on what it was. At a certain point in my late twenties, going for a glass of wine became the activity most of my friends were enthusiastic about. Whether I’d changed friends or our tastes had changed, I’m not actually sure. Either way, Friday night drinks became a routine, especially when we moved to downtown Vancouver. And I discovered that, like most activities, I can be convinced to show interest in drinking if it’s a social activity. A consummate extrovert, I can be a social anything, really. Under the right circumstances, this can actually be reasonably dangerous. If I’m enjoying myself, I’m highly suggestible, always up for an experiment.

…which is to say that as I entered my early thirties, and my social circle continued to expand, so did my enthusiasm for drinking. Wine became my drink of choice, usually chilled white, often Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc if I was with Topher.

But then the pandemic happened. And the thing about being a social drinker is that the novelty of drinking wears off when the social aspect is no longer available. This past weekend, I met Topher for brunch for the first time in more than a year. Our wine consumption has taken a nosedive since we’ve been separated. While we both enjoyed our single drink, I confess that I found myself wondering how we used to so easily go back for more.

It seems strange to say this at a time when statistics show that most people are drinking far more than they ever did before. But I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. I don’t drink much these days. As restrictions ease and social activities resume in earnest, I may find myself reaching for wine more often again. I know what I like now, at least, and where to get it. But I also know, especially after a year and a half of social isolation, that I like how wine looks most of all.

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