Not to Play Favorites, But...

An answer to the question I am asked the most

“What’s Your Favorite?”

One of my closest friends used to be married to a woman who was a challenging conversationalist. Her idea of rousing dinner party patter was to ask you what your favorite __ was and then have everyone answer the question, as in what’s your favorite movie or what’s your favorite band. She wasn’t looking for an explanation and often got frustrated if people answered the question with a story about why that particular song/ movie/celebrity meant something to them. When I told her that I don’t have favorites full stop—no favorite Beatles song, no favorite book—it didn’t lead to a robust discussion of her need to categorize cultural touchstones or my need to not play along. She simply turned to my husband and asked him what his favorite Beatles song was. Definitely not my favorite.

Little did I know then that I would be asked what my favorite is more times than I can count. Early in my career waiting tables, customers would often ask me what my favorite dish on the menu was. I answered readily and, more often than not, the person ordered that dish. They didn’t always love it, though. Had I known about true hospitality then, I would have engaged them in a conversation about what they were in the mood for or what they were trying to decide between. Because it does you no good if my favorite dish on the menu is ratatouille but you hate peppers and eggplants and were more in the mood for steak.

Since opening the wine shop, I’ve been asked what my favorite wine is more than any other question. Okay, maybe how are you is actually the question I hear the most, but that’s just midwestern manners. I rarely answer the question in a straightforward answer for two main reasons:

• I honestly don’t have a favorite. I have regions, varietals, and styles that I love more than others, but so many other factors come into play. Today on a gray 40 degree day? Maybe Beaujolais. Later this week when it’s sunny and almost 60? Probably something pink and sparkling.

• I want the person asking the question to find their new favorite, not mine. If you and I have similar taste in wine, I might steer you towards one of my go-tos, but that’s only after I’ve gotten to know your tastes and feel confident that you’ll like that minerally acid bomb as much as I do. The key to my job is to try not to impose my taste on yours, but rather to use your taste to help you explore more wines.

Of course there are wines in the shop that I am really excited about, that I get all jazz handsy over, and that I want to get into lots of people’s hands. But that’s different than favorite. Favorite implies one answer that fits all occasions.

Now, I realize that plenty of people ask me this question not so they can immediately pick up whatever I say but as a way of getting to know me (dare I say, maybe even size me up). If that’s the tenor of the conversation, I’ll often answer with a region that I’m really excited about or a producer that wows me or I’ll announce that Champagne is my desert island wine. Those answers tend to lead to more fruitful, interesting conversation.

I don’t mean to shame you if you love asking what someone’s favorite is, but I encourage you to think about related versions of this question that will help you get where you actually want to go. When my daughter was small, she loved asking about favorites, but that’s evolved over the years into give-and-take conversations that leave us all feeling more in tune with one another.

An Exception to Every Rule

All of that is a long lead-up to say that I might actually have an answer to the question of what my favorite wine is. Remember that I prefaced this by saying that we might not have the same tastes or interests, so this not gospel, but it is a bit of evangelism.

Kenny Likitprakong is one of the most talented winemakers I have the pleasure of supporting through my business. Whenever he has a new wine available, especially under his Folk Machine label, my expectations are incredibly high. I recently saw 2023 Aligoté on my supplier’s list of his wines, and I texted an order before my brain had even processed what I was reading. The second fiddle white grape of Burgundy grown in Mendocino, fermented in a concrete egg, and then partially aged in neutral oak? YES, PLEASE!

And the wine did not disappoint.

Wine fireworks, I tell you. Bone dry with loads of minerals, a hint of citrus and tree fruit, a dash of breadiness, all tied up in this luscious mouthfeel with a finish that just won’t quit.

We bought all that we could get our hands on, which really wasn’t much. So in a week or two when someone asks me what my favorite wine is, I’ll have to go back to deflecting the question, but for this moment in time, I can actually play favorites.

What Else I’m Loving

I’m finding an every two weeks rhythm with this newsletter that allows for some good finds to accumulate without it being so long in between writing. If I had written last week as promised, I would have had nothing good to share. But now, I have some fun picks:

• When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O’Neill: allegorical fairy tales are not my usual genre, but I trust the wise minds at River Head, so I gave it a go. What I got was cinematic visions of wealth and decadence, female friendships that turn lusty and violent, and a women-led revolution. It’s the novel you didn’t know you needed right now.

• The women friends plotline on The White Lotus. Not because it makes me happy to see the inner workings of these gossipy women, but because it’s so real and true. It reminds me to be a better person every day.

• Pork chops with apples & cider. As much as we’re all itching for ramps and radishes, it’s still very much wintery food season here in Wisconsin. My family’s had this dish a few times this season, and it always fills our hearts with joy. If you’re here in Madison, do yourself a favor and get the pork from Meat People. It’ll change your life.

Finally, I finished Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times this morning, a novel that proved to me again that books about ennui aren’t my cup of tea. That said, it has one of the best author notes in the acknowledgements:

I had a full-time teaching job when I wrote EXCITING TIMES, but I earned enough money to pay rent, and I didn’t have any caregiving responsibilities. It’s much harder to write without those conditions in place. Everyone deserves to write books if they want to. That will never be possible in a world where billionaires exist, but it’s possible in a humane one; thank you to everyone who’s working and organizing to get us there.

Hear, hear! To a humane world!