Why I Stopped Drinking Wine: A Rant Turned Essay.

Let me say this up front, under oath, hand on the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I am no longer allowed to finish. Thank you, 40s, for taking the one thing I love.  I love, well, I LOVE WINE! I love it the way some people love their pet chihuahua or a decade-old grudge from a frenemy, which they can never remember how it started. But Susan, when I see you in the streets, it’s at sight! I digress; I love wine, in an unhealthy way, but I also know when to stop.  At one point in my life, I dreamed of becoming a sommelier. I saved up money and dreamed of opening a local wine shop, with the shop name in cursive on the awning.  Special tastings, book events, even cooking classes. I understood wine as a language and a culture before I understood it as a drink.  I grew up Catholic, so during communion we would take a sip of wine to represent the blood of Christ. On milestone birthdays, or even special occasions, a bottle of champagne was customary. The glass of wine to toast a life well lived before saying goodbye to a loved one, because some things are too big for words, and a toast feels right before saying goodbye forever. I was raised in this culture; I learned how wine pairs with meals and events, and how it’s used. My family introduced me to the fine culinary rituals of wine, the same way other families introduce kids to Little League early, with the confidence that I’d be good at it.

So understand what follows is not a wine takedown. It is a eulogy to say goodbye to an aspect of my life that I outgrew, or my Liver said no more. And like most eulogies, it has three parts, and only two of them make me look good.

Reason One: My Body Filed a Complaint

Somewhere around 2023, I noticed I was gaining weight despite working out three- to five-mile runs, weight-lifting, and watching what I ate.  My body betrayed me and packed on the pounds, disrespectfully. The weight I was gaining was the fitness equivalent of studying all night and still failing the test. Turns out the problem wasn’t just the wine. Hormones were changing and not letting any ounce of fat go, turning everything into visceral fat. It didn’t help that over the two years, a parade of fitness instructors and trainers seemed personally offended by my request to train my back, shoulders, and arms instead of doing squat variation #47. I want a total body workout, not just a booty buster. I am not that girl; give me some deadlifts and chest press. For the love of GOD, let me do a clean and press for 15 reps, for three rounds.

I want a sculpted back. I want defined arms. I would like, once, to finish a workout without someone implying that my only redeeming quality is my corn-fed, hills-walking booty that I have because of genetics. One trainer straight-up asked if I wanted “a fat ass for my man. “Ma’am.  I don’t give a fuck about what a man wants! This is my body. I am the one who lives in this body. I get to decide what it looks like, not some future man.” I digress; I’m in my 40s now, and my liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and any other organ have opinions on my wine intake. Opinions I did not ask for!  But trying to keep my internal organs healthy and happy. An overrated fine, and necessit..) I made the boring, responsible decision to save wine for special occasions.  If I do decide to partake on the rare occasion I must drink, I must have wine before 8 p.m., like I’m a toddler. I plan the next day around “detox.” This is not glamorous. This is a grown woman doing math before a glass of pinot noir. The indigestion, four extra pounds, and elevated liver enzymes are not worth it. And to the person already forming the words “You shouldn’t drink at all! It’s bad for you!” Kindly keep that to yourself.

Reason Two: My Bank Account Filed a Complaint

This reason is the least poetic and the most honest: money. I work two jobs. In a fair universe, that buys me unlimited $15 bottles of wine on sale with a coupon. We do not live in that universe. We live in a universe where someone thought Herbert Hoover’s idea of tariffs was a great idea, as a bottle of Italian wine goes from $7.99 to $18.99 because, say it with me, TARIFFS! Before I turned 40, I spent roughly a few hundred dollars a year on wine, which, written down like that, is not bad. These days it’s closer to a hundred, maybe less, spread out over a year. I have learned to nurse a bottle slowly as it owes me money. I even stopped gifting wine, mostly because everyone I know has quietly done the same math I did, or has become a wine snob.  Please read the next paragraph for better context. Cutting the wine budget was, unglamorously, one of the best financial decisions I’ve made. No cinematic redemption arc here. Just a woman choosing her savings account over a Cabernet, and feeling, against all odds, pretty good about it.

Reason Three: My Friends Ruined It, and I Will Not Be Taking Questions or Opinions on this hot take

Here is the actual dagger. Not my liver. Not my budget. It was my friends. Et Tu -Bianca, Et Tu! (Pause if you don’t know the Et Tu line; go read Julius Ceaser. Read the classic if you want to learn the 48 laws of power, not the Robert Greene Book; back to our crafted Rant.

Somewhere along the way, a portion of my friend group transformed from “people who enjoy wine” into wine “SNOBS,” a much more insufferable species of wine lover. Not the fun kind of wine lovers who have restaurant connections and a taste for the elusive bottle of wine. They actually know all the history and details, smiling as they regale you with their time in France learning about this wine. (Shout-out to Fred from Total Wine, amazing teacher, sarcastic wine lover; I would have a glass with you anytime.)

I mean the kind who cannot let an opinion pass unchallenged, even when the opinion is mine, about my own mouth, tasting wine with my taste buds; case in point: the champagne and fried chicken incident. Pause, I know that wine and Fried Chicken can go together. However, not all champagne pairs well with fried chicken. It’s like eating a banana with coffee; your breath will smell like Hot Sh!t. On this day, that particular champagne had the word ” aperitif ” on its label.  An aperitif is a pre-meal palate-waker/cleanser, not a companion to fried food. This particular wine didn’t work for me with fried chicken. I was not asking for a debate. I was reporting sensory data from my own tongue. And one of my friends at the table decided this required a rebuttal, inevitably ending with the suggestion that, of course, it would pair with fried chicken.  I quietly ate and drank nothing that evening. You are not going to tell me this wine complements the fried chicken when the wine was clashing with salt and oil and, on top of that, the cool charcuterie of cheese and prosciutto.

Another time, someone not worth calling “Friend” decided to force me to have Riesling with my meal. Hear me out, I love Riesling, but it has its time and place. It follows a spectrum from super sweet to super dry. No, these are not sommelier terms, but I had dreams of becoming one, and obviously, if you are reading this, I am not a sommelier.  The wine arrived with our meal. I was having roasted fall vegetables with a spice element and a dry Riesling, which messed with my tongue; I tasted more bitterness and a metallic taste.  I personally wanted a nice Red to complement the Smoked Paprika and chipotle seasoning.  The other person smiled and grinned, saying, “Isn’t it great?”  My face as I watched them eat their smoked fish and try to act like it was the perfect pairing.  You can drink wine with anything, but sometimes it’s ok to ask the server for a suggestion or trust your taste buds rather than force a fake smile. Ahh, those vegetables deserved a better wine. Before someone says, the Riesling would have been fine, again my taste buds, my mouth, my digestive system.

Then there’s the Snooty friend at dinner, ordering red wine with a small speech attached, the pointed looks exchanged between me and the server, like we’re all confused about the speech for ordering wine. Meanwhile, I’m eating my vegetables, telling the server, “ Please bring me the wine the sommelier or chef suggested with the meal.” Now I would like to state that I know that I am just as pretentious as my snob friends. You know when people are staring at you, judging you, and saying “oh, you ordered that?” or “I am surprised you ordered that?”  Looking at the server giving the knowing look, we understood each other and what was exactly happening: they’re upselling the bottle with the highest markup, and I would rather trust a stranger’s inventory than sit through a monologue about tannins from a friend who just learned the word 10 minutes before dinner.

I don’t want wine to be the whole conversation. I want it to be the icebreaker, not the entire evening’s agenda. I don’t need a treatise on why you, personally, deserve the Riesling. I need you to relax, order the Moscato you actually want, and talk to me about literally anything else: politics, Bravo, the weather, our various ongoing personal collapses, the horrible co-worker that you hate. Drinking with these particular people didn’t make me feel included. It made me feel like I’d wandered into a time-share seminar I never signed up for. To be clear, it’s not all friends; there’s a small, beloved exception to this rule: the friends who will always get a glass poured in their honor, no questions, no commentary. The friends who understand the wine is a part of the experience, not the experience. They invite you over to watch TV and have wine and food on deck. The TV is on mute, with ambient lighting to enhance the laughter of friendship. Just a wonderful time with people who love you more than being pretentious. A good time. You know who you are. Everyone else: you turned my favorite ritual into a performance review, and I stopped attending.

The Verdict

So here’s the accounting, in order of how much it hurts to admit: I stopped drinking wine for my health, because the body in your 40s does not forgive the way your body in your 20s did. I stopped for my finances because a savings account and investments are, shockingly, more satisfying in the long term than a $15 bottle with a coupon. And I stopped, honestly, because a handful of people decided that loving wine wasn’t allowed to be simple anymore. Turns out a pretentious wine snob is a special kind of insufferable, worse, even, than someone who won’t admit they’re wrong. Both are annoying, but it turns out they’re related and deserve each other.

P.S. I had a bottle of wine it was called Clean Slate Riesling 2024. It was amazing ! I need to get another bottle ASAP.  Would  you like to buy me a glass of wi…coffee 😊 →Ko-fi.com/chemichelletales