"Until today, I have never liked White wine ..."

I have had three different people on seperate occasions tell me this after trying a White wine I had paired with a food course. The first time someone said that to me, I was amazed. I thought about all the different White wines I had tried and how wonderful most of them were; the diversity and complexity of a Riesling, how refreshing a Sauvignon Blanc can be, or how good a big buttery Chardonnay can be.

This got me to thinking how could someone go their whole life and not find a White wine they liked and then it hit me - Weddings and large group functions. I remembered how many weddings and large group functions I'd been to that the White wine was god awful.

My buddy, John called me and asked about what wine he should serve at his wedding. I asked him what price point he had to work with ... "As cheap as possible". I came back with two wines that I thought were OK - a $10 white and a $11 red. Both of these wines weren't what I'd describe as amazing but they were at least drinkable. He thought both of these would be good, and then discussed the choices with his parents... who freaked "Spending that much money on wine? Most people aren't wine drinkers at the wedding and you want to spend that much!!!"

When he told me this I was floored - $10-$11 bottles of wine are too expensive? I've used higher priced wines to cook with, but I guess when you are buying a very large number of bottles, a couple of bucks per bottle can make a big difference.

In the end he picked up a Red wine from Macedonia (until that point I didn't even know Macedonian wine was even sold wine in Canada) at $6 a bottle and I can't recall what the White was but it was just as cheap and even more nasty than the red.

(Note - to any of my American friends reading this - a California wine that you buy for $7-10 will end up costing $18-20 in an Ontario Liquer store, so when I say $10-$11 CDN, it would be like a $4-5 bottle. $6 CDN is going to be like a $2-3 bottle of wine in the US.)

I don't think John's parents were the exception to the rule, generally at most weddings and large functions the wine's most important feature is price.

This got me thinking about weddings in general - if you aren't willing to spend a few extra bucks on wine to get something drinkable, maybe you should cut down on the guest list? Smaller guest list = more money per person to spend on people you do like!

For a lot of people there first exposure to wine is at a wedding or large group function, if this was the only place you were drinking wine, you are not exactly getting the best that the world of wine has to offer.

The other thought I had was the food that the White wine was going with. I find Red wines are a lot more forgiving when pairing (i.e. if you pair something that goes with a Cab. but instead use a Pinot Noir or a Shiraz, it will probably be OK, not amazing but not bad). White wines tend to be lot more diverse between grapes than red. You miss with a White wine pairing and you'll really know it.

So between Wedding and bad pairings, it does kind of explain why someone might not of had a White wine they liked. If your experience with White had been like that, it wouldn't exactly motivate you to go out and spend $15-25 on a nicer White, would it?

Cheers!

Mark.