A holiday changes the way wine tastes, so the bottles seem disappointing when you get home

It happens with certain rosés drunk ice-cold – perhaps straight from the bottle (speaking for myself) – with the sunset in front of you and particularly good company. The same wines, at home, served in the right glass and with the fridge within easy reach, sometimes lose a great deal of their charm. They weren’t necessarily bad. It’s just that, without the sunset, they are finally called to account for their actions.

And then there’s the souvenir wine. The one we choose because we’re there and we want to drink something that’s characteristic of that place. We’d never have looked for it on a wine list in Naples, Bologna or Turin, but on holiday it almost feels like a must. Because at that moment we’re not just buying a bottle, but a little piece of the experience.

The journey home, on the other hand, is unforgiving. The wine is the same, but everything else has vanished: the sea, the fish, the light, the hunger after a day out, the company. And above all, that version of ourselves which, for a few days, had stopped rushing about.

A holiday gives us licence to have a drink with lunch, to order a glass of sparkling wine at five in the afternoon, and to choose a bottle without reading the label. At home, the same actions would almost seem like a statement of intent.

And this is precisely what makes it so interesting for those who produce and sell wine, because when on holiday, consumers break out of their routine. They make choices without their usual constraints and reveal desires, curiosities and openness that often remain hidden in everyday life. They aren’t just buying a bottle: they’re buying the moment they imagine drinking it.

Then September arrives. It’s back to work, to the usual dinner, the usual drink and the bottle bought on holiday.
We open it again and, suddenly, our judgement becomes more critical.

People – ordinary people – are tied to a context, a place, a land. And so are wines. The same applies to works of art, with the exception of true masterpieces. Tiepolo looks brilliant in New York, but it is only upon entering a museum that a piece of shit becomes a work of art (as Piero Manzoni taught us).

Perhaps, in the end, we are not always able to tell whether we really enjoyed what we drank, or whether life was simply better whilst we were drinking it. Wine is fortunate: when it is mediocre, it can always blame the setting. And when the setting is perfect, it can even seem like a masterpiece.