Ever ordered “fruits” and ended up with shrimp? 🦐

Have you ever tried to learn a new language?

Most of us have attempted it, though usually not to the degree of those overachieving Europeans — fluently chatting in four tongues while we’re over here struggling to remember “hola” from 8th grade Spanish.

I didn’t get to take a foreign language until middle school (way too late, if you ask me), where they required us to choose between Spanish and French.

I desperately wanted to take French. (Yes, I was a Francophile even at age 12 — so sue me). But my parents, probably wisely, determined that Spanish would have more practical application in my life. So whether they knew I was destined for a career in restaurants or it was merely fortuitous, Spanish is what I took. And it not only proved incredibly valuable, but  also earned me points with my Puerto Rican college boyfriend. I digress...

My French wishes were granted when, in 8th grade, my family hosted a Parisian exchange student for the summer.

Aurore was a few years older than me and oh so sophisticated… she wore chic black dresses rather than Abercrombie low-rise jeans, opted for espressos over Frappacinos, and gagged at the sight of a Big Mac. 

But the poor girl was understandably disappointed by the corner of the United States she’d been relegated to  — from the storied cobblestones of St. Germaine and to the onion fields of Sherwood. When we took her to the Oregon coast — blustery and bleak as ever — she shivered in the whipping wind and asked plaintively, “’ow far eez Maliboo?”

But even if her dreams of Baywatch and Beverly Bills were dashed by the realities of rural Oregon, I was thrilled with her arrival. Because it meant I could start to learn French. Casually, of course — but key phrases like, “Ça va?,” “Où sont la toilette?” and “J’ai faim,” were at least introduced.

​​I didn’t realize it then, but learning French in this conversational way would later remind me a lot of trying to learn wine — fumbling through phrases, picking things up through immersion, and only later realizing that there was a whole vocabulary I hadn’t been taught.

That French vocabulary doubled the following year when Aurore’s younger sister Karen (my age) came to stay with us. And then the next summer — dreams do come true  — it was my turn… I got to go stay with them for a summer in Paris! Rest assured, it was every bit as magical as I hoped. 

By this time, Karen and I had become fast friends and, as such, were swapping vocab that was oh-so–relavent to our 16-year old lives… I taught her to say, “That’s hella tight,”“Fo shizzle my nizzle,” and “Yo quiero Taco Bell.” (Who says American’s can’t be trilingual?)

And she taught me to say, “Zidane est trop canon.” (Zidane is super hot.) “J'adore le film Amélie” (I love the movie Amélie) and, most importantly for an American traveling in Europe in the early aughts: “Vous avez raison– mon président est un idiot.” (You’re right–my president is an idiot.) Honestly, all of these phrases still hold up…

Giving Karen a truly American experience at the St. Paul Rodeo

By the end of the summer, my fluency had skyrocketed and I was able to follow conversations, grasp humor and respond well enough to survive in most social situations.

But I still had never taken a French class. I knew how words sounded, but not how they were spelled. I couldn’t correlate the phrases I knew by ear to the words I saw on a page.

If you handed me the bistro menu, I was screwed. Ask me to decipher a newspaper heading? No chance. Try to read literally anything with the correct pronunciation? Nope.

At the end of college, I finally tried to remedy this. Acting majors weren’t allowed to take foreign languages (too many scheduling conflicts) but, for my last semester, I snuck in a summer in Paris to once-and-for-all study French in a classroom.

This time there were textbooks and conjugation. And boy, did I struggle.

French, you probably know, is not phonetic — so words I thought that I knew suddenly made no sense. One phrase I’d used most at 16, pronounced kes-ku-say, simply asks “What is this?” But seeing it spelled out “qu'est-ce que c'est” left me wondering exactly that.

Between-class carousel rides

I also realized that the French I had learned in my teens was specific… to my teens. Could I chat about nightlife, dating, pop culture and order “une plus verre du vin”? Absolutely. But discuss careers, health or finance? Pas possible.

I didn’t know then what I know now: You need both immersion and structure to be truly fluent.

Which brings me to wine. I’m telling you all this because learning wine is a lot like learning a foreign language.

See, you can taste a wine and experience it directly; but that doesn’t tell you what it is. Or you can read a book to learn the history, geography and winemaking techniques — but your senses still don’t know what the wine tastes like; it’s just theory.

So most of us are left doing what I did at age 16: winging it. Picking up random tidbits where we can and hoping something sticks; tasting this or that and repeating often-meaningless or misinformed vocab that doesn’t get us any closer to comprehension

We say, “I like a bold red.” Okay — but what does that mean? Ripe fruit? New oak? High tannins? Your idea of a bold red might be totally different than your friend’s.

We say, “I want a dry white.” Okay — but essentially all fine wine is dry (all of the grape sugar has fermented into alcohol). Do you actually mean acidic? Mineral-driven? Unoaked?

If we don’t know how to speak the language of wine, we’re stuck playing a guessing game every time we order it.

Back to the French analogy — I once ordered “fruits” expecting a bowl of berries and got a seafood tower instead. In wine, a word like “Pinot” can be just as misleading — it might be red, white, rosé, or one of several different grapes. Without the right translation, we’re all guessing. 

A surprise tower of fruits du mer

Worse, wine has this layer of intimidation around it — as if you have to know the exact right words or you’ll be exposed for your ignorance. So many people are afraid to even try to articulate what they like, for fear of getting it wrong!

That’s really why I created Raise a Glass. Whether I’m hosting tastings, making ridiculous Instagram videos or writing these newsletters — my goal is to give you both immersion and knowledge. Wine has been the beverage of humanity for thousands of years; we all have the right to speak it.

And while I can’t promise you’ll become fluent overnight, I can say that I’ve been working on something very cool — and it might just be the language lesson you didn’t know you needed…

Stay tuned for more news soon but, in the meantime, I’m wishing you good food, great company and excellent wine.

Cheers,
Kelsey