Why has wine become so complicated?

By Adrien, Winemaker and Founder of VinPOP.

You are standing in front of that supermarket shelf. It is the "wall of confusion." Hundreds of bottles are staring at you. You are desperately looking for a reference point, so you turn to the labels: gold medals, scores from prestigious journalists, or that famous "4.2/5" on your mobile app.

You buy it. You uncork it. And then... it’s a cold shower. You don’t like it. Yet, instead of blaming the bottle, you blame yourself. You tell yourself that you are the problem. That your palate isn't "educated" enough. Let me tell you a liberating truth: you are not the problem. It is the system that is betraying you.

1. The Dictatorship of Conditioned Taste

We are living under a true dictatorship. On one side, journalists who taste in closed circles and decree, in an arbitrary manner, what is "great." On the other, applications that average the tastes of thousands of strangers.

The problem? These strangers are themselves influenced and conditioned by the scores they see displayed. It is a vicious circle: we no longer rate the wine, we rate the reputation it has been given. Your taste is 100% subjective, but you are forced to follow an average that doesn't resemble you. It’s as if you were forced to wear shoes of the "average" size of the population: it fits no one.

2. The Cycle of Disappointment (Russian roulette with your money)

By playing and losing, you have adopted a survival strategy. I call this the cycle of degradation:

• You buy at 10€ by trusting a medal $\rightarrow$ Disappointed.

• You move to 5€ $\rightarrow$ "If I'm going to be disappointed, I might as well not break the bank."

• You eventually abandon wine for a beer or a cocktail.

Why? Because there, at least, the promise is kept. You know what you are going to drink. You left wine because the industry exhausted your trust and your wallet with promises of "scores" that are never found in your glass.

3. The social vector is broken: When wine divides instead of connecting

Wine has long been a product of the people, a catalyst for conviviality. Today, the social vector is broken. Wine has become a fake social ladder: "I know about it, so I am part of high society."

I have seen it myself in emerging markets: wine is no longer there to connect people, it is there to divide them between the "connoisseurs" and the others. This fracture is fueled by a total disconnection in prices. Forty years ago, a great estate sold its vintage for the equivalent of 30€. Today, these same estates sell them for thousands of euros. This elitism has created a toxic snobbery where people are afraid to say "I don't like it" in front of an expensive or highly-rated bottle. Why are we ashamed to know nothing about wine when we readily admit it for whisky or coffee? Because wine has become a tool for social judgment, rather than a tool for pleasure.

4. Winemakers: Allies who are victims of silence

You might think the winemaker is the architect of this snobbery. In reality, they are the victim. Most are "underwater," struggling for their financial survival and no longer have any contact with you.

They sell to merchants who never pass your feedback back to them. To avoid disappearing, they have only one option: obtain that gold medal by erasing the identity of their terroir to please standardized criteria. They sacrifice their soul for a subjective score, for lack of an alternative to reach you directly.

5. The VinPOP Revolution: Explore without ever losing

Netflix and Spotify solved this problem 10 years ago. They don't ask you to be an expert. They tell you: "If you liked this, you will like that." At VinPOP, we are bringing wine into the era of individual truth. Thanks to molecular science, we don't try to find out if a wine is "medal-winning," but if it is made for you.

• 95% match: Your pleasure is guaranteed by science.

• 85% to 90% match: This is your "discovery window." You can explore new horizons without taking a risk, without losing money, and without the fear of being disappointed.

The goal is simple: remove snobbery, complex dialect, and allow you to discover the richness of the vineyard while being certain of your investment.

Become the hero of your own cellar 

It is time to give wine back to those who drink it. We don't want to teach you how to speak "wine," we want to give you the certainty that every bottle opened will be a moment of pleasure. Do not be a spectator of others' scores anymore. Take back the power over your pleasure.