Natural wine and the millennial dream

I will probably never fly first class.

There comes a time — or maybe, an age — when you realize that something a younger version of yourself saw as an inevitability becomes an improbability. For my generation, this has also included more basic adulthood landmarks: buying a home, starting a family, remotely considering retirement.

But there are also these smaller dreams that have dropped out of the realm of possibility: Smaller but still significant hopes that would have marked the occasion of Having Made It, like a pair of designer shoes or a fancy sound system. But throwing that kind of cash around today, for many of us, feels totally outrageous, especially when you consider the cost of groceries, filling up the tank, or the looming threat of a hospital bill.

I haven’t written much at all about natural wine, despite it being 30% of my personality on any given day. I fell in love with the stuff about eight years ago and I probably teeter on that fine line between enthusiastic and insufferable. I will have a glass or two of your grocery store pinot grigio, but I will also go home and bitch to Dave that I’m certain one more glass would’ve given me a headache (I am the headache).

While some people take up pottery, gardening, or gambling (I swear that every other article I read is about FanDuel or Polymarket), I dove into natural wine. And I have been trying to figure out how to approach the topic in this newsletter. 

Last year (and this past weekend) I attended Third Coast Soif, a massive tasting event of minimal intervention wines and other beverages held at Chicago’s Plumbers’ Union Hall. Both years, I was struck by how it felt distinctly millennial — and not just because of the demographic representation. A few sniffs, swirls, and sips in (I am a professional!) and I started to pick up on what these wines seem to offer its fans: a small but affordable luxury; community amid chaos; a more creative alternative to a once-unapproachable category; and scrappy DIY production as either a side gig or total departure from more traditional career paths.

It’s a big ol’ collective of people doing their best with the lemons (GRAPES) they were handed: Thanks for the crippling student loan debt/unending war in the Middle East/runaway inflation. Would you like to hear about how I revived an old vineyard of Cayuga grapes near the Finger Lakes to make 40 bottles of wine that I sell at the local pizza shop? (YES)

After college, my cohort was yelled at for liking such extravagances as avocado toast and lattes, as if we should never know small pleasures as we worked unpaid internships. It’s wild to be admonished for having little treats when college cost us nearly twice what it cost the prior two generations, and inflation mostly wiped out what little income gains we’ve made. I won’t belabor this point (Yahoo! Finance can beat that dead horse for us), but are we supposed to forgo all nice things because we were dealt a raw deal? Spare me; I can’t hear you over the sounds of opening this pét-nat anyhow.

I have zero problem dropping $20-$40 on a bottle of wine at the end of a workweek, having spent the prior five days wondering if AI will steal my job while wars rage in the background. I don’t want to take the edge off with bottom-shelf slop. I want to quiet the noise in a way that acknowledges I worked hard to deserve what I do have, and I also worked diligently to develop my particular tastes (a chilled, floral red with a bag of kettle chips and castelvetrano olives). When you consider that millennials are now the largest group of wine consumers, I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to pause a few minutes to sip a really good gamay or riesling. 

Natural wine feels like the anecdote to so much that has plagued and exhausted my generation for years now. It’s small producers versus big brands. It’s using low-intervention practices that aim to work with the land instead of against it. It’s an opportunity to share with others instead of consuming alone. It’s unconventional, it’s fun, and it’s so much more complex and varied than those college-era jugs of Carlo Rossi suggested it could be.

Consider some of the people and places in the natural wine scene, like wine caterer and educator Amari Collins, a distinctly unstuffy voice who describes a Chardonnay as “a beachy blonde like Gwyneth Paltrow” and a pét-nat as “giving Seth Rogen in The Studio.” Or Chicago bar Easy Does It with its rotating schedule of DJs, dance parties, and educational tasting events. Or Rose Hill Ferments’ wine-cider blends that a rep told us they recommend drinking while floating in a pool. It’s all a little weird and totally delightful.

When I looked around the Union Hall on Sunday, during this year’s Third Coast Soif, it felt like a real snapshot of my peers. Everyone seemed genuinely curious and excited about the wines, the producers, and total strangers. Sure, the booze and the DJ gave the event an air of celebration — folks were lubricated, duh — but it came with an easy respect for everyone there. You want to be part of this community? Great! Be open and courteous — to the people, the wine, the vines, etc.

My four-year degree did not present me with the sort of upward mobility promised by our guidance counselors. Instead, I pay hundreds of dollars per month for health insurance that I’m afraid to use, then cautiously — with what’s left — treat myself to things like wine and travel. I book the sort of cheap-ass plane tickets that let you choose neither where you sit nor allows you to bring more than a bag that fits under your seat. I study unit prices on grocery store price tags and stock up on canned beans and tinned fish. But then I stop at a favorite small wine shop for a dark rosé to enjoy on the couch with Dave. Life is a balancing act, and we just happened to be born into the era that expects us to be circus elephants on a colorful ball. 

I never expected to be rich (imagine getting a journalism degree for the paycheck!), but I did expect a few more things to be within my reach at this age. All I can do is be more selective about what I can access, though.

Now, everyone come have a drink with me. We can commiserate between sips of something really bright and mineral-forward that would pair well with a tuna melt and Chex Mix.