Last year, I experienced a microaggression in New York when I visited my favorite lower Manhattan natural wine bar. When I asked the bartender about a Chardonnay by-the-glass, he was clearly annoyed and asked, “Do you like okay buttery Chardonnay? ‘Cause that’s what it tastes like.”
The subtext was you look like a dumb tourist who could never understand what real wine tastes like. The wine I asked about was in fact a unoaked and unmaloed Chardonnay, vinified in a natural style.
These microaggressions are nothing compared to those that my black, gay, and women friends, for example, are subjected to on a daily basis. And that’s not to mention the many historic microaggressions that are often woven into daily parlance (their original meaning often forgotten).
But I hope that these examples help to convey the idea.
I began thinking of microaggressions and wine the other day when I overheard a famous wine writer say: “wow, that’s pretty good for a Negroamaro!”
