love

I am thinking about love.

 

Why, you might ask? Well let me tell you.

I have just been reading the results of leading online wine retailer Vinomofo's inaugural Great Wine Census. Australian consumers’ purchasing, cellaring, drinking  and faking it habits, revealed.

Apparently what we all imagined to be true, is. Australia is, indeed, a nation of wine-lovers. 26% of the 6000 surveyed, cited it as one of their greatest obsessions.

But, and here's the bit that got me thinking...despite their love of wine, 64% of Australians feel intimidated by restaurant wine lists and 47% feel nervous making a choice in a wine store. That's a lot of anxiety. 31% confessed to having faked wine knowledge to impress someone and 6% refilled an expensive bottle of wine with a cheaper one. 

Just read the last part of that sentence again. I'll do it for you: 6% refilled an expensive bottle of wine with a cheaper one. That's 360 people passing off cheap wine as expensive. 

Wow.

But back to the love aspect. It made me sad to think that something that engenders love can also produce such anxiety and feelings of not being good enough. 

And yet this is so often the case. The things and people we aspire to, look up to, feel impressed by and love, can sometimes be the things which make us the most nervous. We want to be valued and loved and we feel afraid that we don't know the right way to make that happen and that simply being ourselves just might not be good enough. 

It should be ok to say that we don't know. To say what we like and don't like and to ask for some help.

And with the right person, or wine shop or sommelier, it is.