For the 13-plus years I’ve been writing this weekly wine column, I’ve imagined myself Don Quixote tilting at the windmills of wine snobbery, piercing the intimidating veil of ritual to make wine approachable and enjoyable. Fun, even. My wine writer colleagues, whether newspaper columnists (too few these days), bloggers (once the rage, now dwindling in number), podcasters (many) or social media influencers (multitudes), would almost certainly agree: Our goal is to help you enjoy wine without worrying about violating some esoteric rule handed down through the centuries.

There’s still a lot of work to do. A recent flurry of news articles bewailed our great American backwardness in wine drinking, quoting one of those dodgy market research surveys that seemed to be all over the map. We are told there were 2,000 respondents, including apparently those who said they do not drink wine, but our only clues to the questions are the outlandish drinking habits we apparently confessed to.

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“Only 17 percent of wine drinkers consume their vino the right way,” one headline screamed. Those were the respondents who said they swirl and sniff before sipping. The rest of us apparently just glug it down. We are either intimidated by or blithely ignorant of the “rules of wine.” Or maybe we just don’t care about decorum and just want our drink.

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One British website was shocked — shocked! — to learn that “as many as 43 percent of [Americans] claimed to put ice cubes in their glass of wine.” (Northerners are more likely to do this. Southerners apparently prefer their 15 percent cabernets neat.) There’s definitely a British condescension toward us backward Yanks here. This was the only article I found ballyhooing that nearly half of us drink white wine at room temperature. Actually, that wouldn’t be at all bad — we tend to drink our whites soon after taking them from the refrigerator (pardon me, the ice box), when they are too cold. Room temperature whites may be the leftovers on the counter we drink for breakfast the next morning, another barbarian habit we apparently indulge.

Few of us say “wine etiquette” enhances our drinking experience, something ingrained in the British psyche. And we often fill our glasses to the top and hold them by the bowls rather than the stems, according to the British site.

Okay, I might side with our British cousins on that one. But if you do fill the glass to the top, grasping it by the bowl and not swirling and sniffing actually makes sense. And, of course, stemless glasses are the great equalizer when it comes to wine snobbery.

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The Brits may have missed the most sensational part of the survey. Apparently, we like to imbibe in the bath, which may explain the ice cubes, and many of us enjoy wine in bed. Really, people? Do you realize how badly touriga can stain a bedsheet?

Is your skepticism meter twitching a bit at all this? Mine, too. The same survey company discovered last year that people paired wine selections to the shows they were streaming on television — a reflection of the pandemic but also a convenient message that we should feel free to binge while we binge. Sales data from early in the pandemic suggest we were, in fact, doing this.

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I nearly forgot food pairings. Respondents were asked whether they enjoy wine with an arbitrary list of foods — including ice cream, PB&J and pancakes (breakfast again!). Apparently, more women responded positively to wings, while men favored mac and cheese, even over burgers and fries. I’ll confess to having enjoyed wine with mac and cheese on occasion, but as a side dish to pulled pork and brisket. Mac as the main pairing? Hmm. Annie’s or Kraft? Gruyere or mozzarella? This could perhaps be an insight into the collective genius of the American palate.

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There’s a positive slant here, a message the wine company commissioning the survey no doubt wanted to convey: Americans enjoy wine with unsophisticated foods and in casual settings, unconcerned by stuffy rules dictating how, when or why. Wine is a beverage, not an event. But this gets drowned in the trope of Americans doing it the wrong way, unable to grasp the worldly virtues of proper wine appreciation.

Wine etiquette — swirling, sniffing, holding the glass by the stem — should be understood, not feared. It has its reasons, but these are more important with higher-end wines and should not intimidate us from enjoying the everyday beverage in our glass. The etiquette has also evolved over centuries, while wine has been with us for millennia. Our collective disregard for these “rules” shouldn’t be seen as another sign of the end of modern civilization, but as our liberation to enjoy wine as we please.

For now, I’m going to pour myself another glass of cabernet and take a long soak. And maybe research some mac and cheese recipes.

More from Wine archives:

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Need wine advice? Put down the app and ask your local shop.

Would you pay $65 for really good boxed wine? This maker is betting on it.

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