“What kind of wine do you want tonight, honey…Snoop Dogg or Martha Stewart?”

It happens to ALL drinkers, no matter your specific area of expertise.  You walk into an unfamiliar liquor store and they have a really great selection of ONE thing, just not the thing you actually came to buy.  You end up standing alone in the aisle, lost in despair and confusion, adrift in an uncertain, uncaring world.  Such was my fate just yesterday.

I moved to Nashville last fall and am still finding “My” places…My Supermarket, My Taco Place, My Post Office, My Drug Dealer, My Gas Station…and most importantly, My Liquor Store.  We’ve all been there…feeling that uneasy lack of human completeness that torments the ill-equipped shopper.  Becoming whole again is a process, and I’m not there yet.

This unnerving odyssey found me at a store in West Nashville that for some reason had EVERY BRAND OF GIN EVER MADE, but the exact same wine selection that is sold at Target, and wine was on my mind, brother! 

“Babe, just get two Francis Ford Coppola’s and be done with it.”

So what do you do?  Ask to speak to a manager about their wine selection (Karen)?  Leave and go somewhere else hoping for a different outcome (also Karen)?  Stay and buy something you don’t really want while passively judging it and yourself (pre-00’s Karen)?  Sorta.  

How does one do that?  First, don’t be a snob.  You are where you are and YOU put you there, okay?  

Start by thinking of what type of wine you want…red, white, rosé, or sparkling.  Inspect the labels on the bottles in that varietal and note any regions that are familiar or that you may have enjoyed (or hated) in the past.  

Also, take note of any more subtle clues the labels may offer.  Does it list a subregion?  Does it list a specific appellation?  Does the bottle look cool or tell a cool story?  That seems unimportant, but remember where you are, son.  You aren’t there picking to impress, you are just trying to get your day sorted and enjoy your goddamn life.  

Finally, let your instincts be the closing argument, and keep ‘er moving.  Remember…you aren’t deactivating a bomb, you are just making a beverage choice.

“Are we allowed to get a NON-celebrity endorsed beverage?”

Here’s what this process looked like for me this time:

Rosé sounds good—>France, maybe—>Lots of good rosé coming out of Provence—>cool looking bottle that would never fit in my wine cave but it doesn’t matter because I’m drinking that whole bottle tonight, so who cares?  

Done.

Was the wine awesome?  No, it wasn’t.  Was it just fine for what I paid for it?  Yes, it was. Will I go somewhere else the next time I need to buy wine?  Of course.  Did I end up being glad I bought all that gin as backup?

HELL, yes.