The Top Ten Reasons I Hate Wine – Five, The Insomnia

Some of you may know me from my wine article series "I Love Italian Wine and Food, " similar French and German series, and my travel articles that always manage to discuss local wine and food. It’s true; I really do love wine and food from Italy, France, Germany, and other countries as well. But I also hate wine and many aspects of the wine scene. Let me explain my top ten reasons for this love-hate relationship. Previous articles discussed the unconscionable expense, the embarrassing lack of knowledge, no wine cellar, and I can’t get the … bottle opened. This article discusses the insomnia that seems an inevitable part of my wine experience.

I can’t help it. Drinking wine tends to keep me up at night, or more precisely wakes me up in the middle of the night. I’m very careful not to overdo the wine tasting and the imbibing. I usually limit the wine to dinner, even when I’m not driving. But I still find myself all bright-eyed and bushy tailed around four in the morning, especially if I have an early start the next morning. Usually I drift off to sleep just in time for the alarm to ring. I know a partial solution to this problem, spit out the wine. But I wasn’t raised to spit, especially not in public and not to waste things - as if fine wine were a mere thing. Of course, in our house, buying a fine wine would have been considered the ultimate waste. But that’s another story.

While spitting is an option when tasting wine, the way I look at it, spitting and eating really don’t go together. Perhaps I should take advantage of my insomnia and finally learn the Bordeaux classifications of 1855, that still rule more than one hundred fifty years later. If those classifications don’t put you to sleep, nothing will. Many connoisseurs say that you can’t be a true wine lover if you don’t know them – wine snobs are the subject of another article. On the other hand, these fancy, schmanzy classifications aren’t everything. Do you remember the top of the line French red Chateau Petrus costing $600 or more that I mentioned in a previous article? Well Chateau Petrus is not part of the Bordeaux classifications of 1855 or any other special classifications. And that’s no joke.

Here are the other reasons that I hate wine, to be explored shortly: Food problems, Wine snobs, Those smells and those tastes, Those colors, Home brew, One more problem and yes, The Solution.