Finding Wine Friends

Wondering if anyone has advice on finding like-minded wine nerds to share some wine with. My previous wine drinking partner is no longer around, and now that lockdowns are easing, I am curious how people go about finding wine drinking friends. FYI- I’m in New Haven, CT if anyone is interested in meeting up! Thanks! Noah

Hi Noah,

I’ve met most of my wine friends through wine events (auctions, tastings, dinners, etc.). Beyond that there is an offline thread. I imagine once we can get back to meeting up there will be a lot of opportunity to meet more wine people.

Steve Gellman and I are both in Stamford as well as some others.

Noah - Check out the Event Planner section of Berserkers:

And edit your subject heading to say something like “Looking for wine friends near New Haven.”

Find a wine forum – for example Wineberserkers – post in their forum that you are looking for wine drinking buddies; and if John Morris offers advice, my recommendation is to follow it.

I would say it is difficult to find someone truly simpatico in a similar wine evolution in your world, but not impossible. You can meet people online by going to events, tastings, etcetera, but it might be difficult to keep in touch if you are at different stages in life, tastes in wine, or of vastly different socio-economic spheres. Everyone here will say “wine people share the most”, but, like that new “best friend” you found at the bar, there may not be a lot of depth there. That said, you shouldn’t not try, as those friendships that transcend will be very rewarding.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with finding connections at work, even people who drink the same wines as I do, though because of COVID we have yet to formally get together. If you have a wine storage facility near you or that you use, ask about group tastings if they are having any.

if you use an offsite wine storage place, open a gnarly bottle of wine on a saturday afternoon. moths to a flame.

Play Dungeons and Dragons.
Join a cult.
Pretend you’re part of the Yale faculty and go to one of their staff wine tastings. If you’re already a faculty member this should have worked already.
Get a puppy and take it for walks.
Find a local grocery store with at least some sort of wine department but no wine steward and just start acting like you are the wine steward.
Seriously, have you tried Dungeons and Dragons?

Or, look at cities on WB posts, find folks nearby that appear to have similar wine interests, and contact them.

This topic reminds me that there should be some sort of European Berserkers’ group.

Duh,
put an add in the personals column of your local newspaper, (or any of the above recommendations)

A few years ago one of the downtown restaurants used to occasionally have wine-related dinners/events. Maybe Soul de Cuba? Obviously that is harder now. I don’t get the sense that The Wine Thief had many events. Maybe Mount Carmel Wine Shop will have some post-COVID?

There already is one. It’s in Finland.

Yale has staff wine tastings?

This is the way.

instagram is pretty helpful nowadays too. Also helpful to say what kind of wine you like.

There’s some merit in having a tasting group with a different weltanschauung so that you can experience and discuss all the expressions of wine.

So many wines I would have never tried if there wasn’t someone who had not introduced us to them, especially blinded.

Definitely true. I’m thinking more at my own stage of life right now, not so much with the types of wines themselves, but in the reason of why we drink and analyze wine. I would never disparage people from the experience of trying new wines and socializing because I’ve learned many valuable things from this myself.

The puppy suggestion is foolproof. Particularly with those of the female persuasion. The last time we had a puppy, I was the most popular guy in the neighborhood. My wife could never figure out why I was so eager to walk the little guy, or why our walks would take so long. But then the puppy grew up. Now no one will talk to me as the old dog and I shuffle around the neighborhood. Old age is not for sissies.

I would strongly encourage you to go into a local wine shop that you like and ask to meet some of the distributors. Gathering to tase with people in the industry is a lot of fun, and many of them are as passionate as we are. They’re local, and who knows, you might even get a “heads up” when cool stuff lands in the area.

Also…seriously, D & D