Years ago, the spousal unit and I took a wine-tasting class. While neither of us is a connoisseur of the substance, we both enjoy wine and are always game to learn new things. In short, it seemed like a fun date.
The class was taught by a sommelier, and I think about his approach to wines regularly, though only occasionally in the context of wine.
As he taught it, there are two facets to assessing any wine. In his professional capacity, the sommelier’s job is to identify the characteristics of wines and evaluate how closely each one cleaves to its type. There is a Platonic ideal for every kind of wine, and the rankings (such as the stickers you see on bottles at the wine store) are a measure of how closely that particular wine, from that particular maker, in that particular year reflects this ideal.
Note that there is nothing in that ranking about whether or not you will enjoy a given wine. It’s not an assessment of whether a wine tastes “good” or “bad,” merely how close it is to an established target.
Whether a wine is “good” or “bad” comes down to the second part of assessing any wine: your personal preference. Every one of us has a unique palate. What tastes good to me might taste gross to you, and vice versa. For instance, the flavor of oak is unappealing to me, and the flavor of charred oak is off-putting. Given the prevalence of wines aged in oak barrels, spirits aged in charred oak barrels, and every other thing under the sun aged in used bourbon barrels, my stance on oak is hardly universal.
However, I know that anything that proclaims itself as “oaked” or “bourbon barrel” is probably not for me, and any wine where that Platonic ideal includes aging in a new oak barrel is also probably not for me.
This idea is one of my favorites to fall back on in this world of overabundant choices and opinions, especially when concepts of “good” and “bad” become associated with these choices. There are plenty of great things, cool things, neat things, things that “everybody” loves, that just don’t suit my preferences. It doesn’t mean those things are bad or wrong; it doesn’t mean that I or my preferences are bad or wrong; it just means that my preferences and those objects don’t align.
So, just as I know that the finest Chardonnay on earth would be wasted on me, I also know that I can live my whole life and die happy without ever owning a smartwatch. And I can also know that there are plenty of people in this world who take the exact opposite approach, and are happier for it.
Instead of thinking whether something is good or bad, think about if and how it suits you. You are you, and I am me, and there will be differences in our answers. So long as we are listening to our actual preferences, we are both right, even when our answers don’t align.
¡Salud!