(Essay in *The Healthy Times* magazine, published by the Healthy Boy Band / Photo: Cover of *The Healthy Times*)
Two Ways of Remembering
Petting with Pet-Nat? Making love with Bordeaux? Sex after wine, with wine, because of wine. Is that even conceivable in the age of the ‘Dry-whatever’ movement? Yes! But…
Neither can be explained via PowerPoint. Neither can be reduced to mere function. Both are – if you do them properly – less a matter of wanting than of feeling. And that is the common core of good sex and great wines: they’re not something you can simply have on demand. Rather, they’re something that happens. Often like a whirlwind. But mostly like a gentle breeze.
The great mistake of the modern era, now drawing to a close, was to try to squeeze wine – like sex – into categories: points, price, performance. But anyone who has ever tasted a truly great wine – so great that, as you breathe out, you feel something being cleared away within you – knows that wine is much closer to the body than the anti-alcohol apartheid movement would have us believe.
The sip is only the beginning. What matters is what remains afterwards: the aftertaste, the lingering sensation, the gentle tingle on the skin. Anyone who has experienced this understands that, in wine too, the sensual is not an afterthought, but the very essence.
Sex works in a similar way. The body as a stage, touch as tannin, breath as the backbone. The craftsmanship is important – but only if it can be forgotten. The finest note in a wine is the one that needs no explanation. It is the same with sex.
Both are – at their best – not about consumption. But a dialogue. A resonance between two bodies. Between skin and palate. Between warmth and coolness. Between what was and what is possible.
For what links a truly good wine with a truly good moment in bed is this: the memory remains not only in the mind. It also remains in the body.
Wine & Sex – Cultural Reflections of an Ancient Desire
Ever since there have been people who want more than just to be full, the same stories have been woven around wine and sexuality. It was no coincidence that Dionysus, the boisterous god of ecstasy, danced amongst vine leaves and bare skin. The intoxication was never merely the glass or the cup in one’s hand. It was always, too, a breaking down of the body’s boundaries. Wine and eroticism – for the Greeks, this was not a lascivious afterthought, but a question of the world order: Apollo for moderation, Dionysus for excess. And both were necessary.
Later, in the medieval monastery, wine was brought under control. Pleasure became a sacrament. The juice was fermented with devotion, but also with that secret joy that arises when the forbidden leaves a quiet crack open. The monks knew: wine is the body. And the body – even in prayer – can never be fully tamed.
When the Enlightenment arrived, it was believed that wine – like sexuality – could be salvaged through rationalisation. People spoke of bouquets, terroirs and acidity levels, whilst in the same breath the etiquette of bourgeois chastity reduced eroticism to a purely marital perspective. Yet here too: anyone who drank with an alert palate knew that desire had not disappeared. It had merely disguised itself more effectively.
In the 19th century, finally, both wine and sex were rediscovered for what they are: experiences of physicality. The Naturalists described with fiery eloquence what lingered on the tongue. And artists from Courbet to Klimt painted the transition: from landscape to skin, from vineyard to love.
Today, in the post-ironic age, both have simultaneously been de-tabooed and trivialised. The wine industry assigns points to bottles; dating apps assign points to people. Yet anyone who takes the time to savour rather than merely consume will sense that what remains is genuine: the subtle tingle of the bitter notes, the interplay between fruit and acidity, the spirit of the moment.
Wine – like sexuality – was never meant for the assembly line. Rather, it is meant for the moment when two bodies – or a body and the palate – cease to be strangers.
Wine: not just any old alcohol
But before we get carried away with poetic musings: wine is not gin. And certainly not tequila. Anyone who reaches for a bottle of Greco di Tufo on a date and is then surprised that the conversation isn’t as uninhibited as it would be after a third gin and tonic – has failed to grasp the essence of wine.
Wine intoxicates differently. More slowly. Closer to the body. Whereas spirits often smash inhibitions with a sledgehammer, wine is the foil-fencer amongst intoxicants. It loosens you up without breaking down boundaries. It warms you without burning you. And that is precisely what makes it as dangerous as it is magnificent for sensual encounters: it creates a space in between. No crashes, just a shimmer. No loss of control, just a game of playing with the loss of control.
Change colours? Better not.
And yet the evening’s most beautiful choreography is quickly ruined if we don’t keep in time. The golden rule of the seasoned connoisseur: don’t change the colour. Anyone who starts with white and ends with red risks not only a headache, but also emotional disarray.
A cool, mineral Chablis tells a different story to a sun-warmed Grenache. Those who mix wildly spoil the evening for themselves – and wake up the next morning without a narrative, but with a throbbing head.
So stick to one style. Make up your mind. Follow the rhythm of a wine, a colour, a texture. Your body will thank you for it. And so will the evening.
Harmony doesn’t begin and end with a ‘quick tipple’
And finally – this is part of it too: nothing is more erotic than a buzz that lingers as a fond memory. Not a blackout in your memory, but the faint glow of an evening you’re still happy to dwell on twelve hours later.
This means: both – or everyone involved – must be aware of their state of inebriation. Wine is not an excuse for overstepping boundaries. Rather, it is a medium that highlights boundaries, if you know how to listen to it.
One glass too many? It can happen. But it must never lead to regretting in the morning what happened during the night. Wine is dialogue, not an excuse. And particularly in moments of togetherness, the following applies: whoever drinks must be in touch with themselves – and with the other person.
The democratic bottle – choosing wine as a dialogue
There were times – not so long ago – when it was considered proper for the man at the table to order the wines. Just as he would speak up when the commis arrived. Or place his napkin on his lap first, whilst the ladies smiled expectantly. This was called the ‘connoisseur’s gaze’, a ‘chivalrous gesture’ or simply ‘the boss chooses’. A relic of an era in which wine was not understood as a sensual shared experience, but as a showcase for male competence.
Those days are over. Thank goodness.
For anyone who invites guests to dinner today – and who sees wine as a dialogue, not a monologue – knows this: choosing a wine is the first step in the courtship. It is part of the game, part of the preliminary flirtation that reveals itself even as one leafs through the wine list, discussing grape varieties, vintages and regions. So why should this moment still be one decided in a patriarchal manner? Why leave the grand spectacle of labels and vintages to men, whilst women are only allowed to provide the applause when the wine is poured?
No, the bottle – the wine – should be placed at the centre of the conversation. And choosing the bottle becomes the first shared choreography of the evening. Who’s in what mood today? Where do we want to go together? Fancy a cool, mineral-rich white that leaves everything open? Or would you prefer the velvety, warm, dark red that says: ‘Now is the moment to let yourself go’?
Wine is always a reflection of the moment. And moments aren’t created by announcements, but by resonance.
Perhaps this is the most beautiful transformation wine has undergone in recent years: away from being a tool of power, towards becoming a catalyst for connection. The sommelier who speaks only to himself has had his day. Today, people lean in together over the wine list, laughing, marvelling, tasting. And letting themselves be surprised. The most exciting bottles emerge from this interplay of voices. From this tentative, searching, sometimes even argumentative togetherness.
The bottle as a compromise? No. As a form of complicity.
Because wine, if we’re honest, is a prelude. And nothing spoils foreplay more than someone who thinks they know it all better. So: let’s leave the old gestures in the museum of good old-fashioned masculine fossils. And let’s drink to a new seating arrangement. One where the wine doesn’t decide who speaks – but where the dialogue decides which wine gets opened.
Because everything good begins – just like wine itself – with sharing.
Wine & Sex – A brief closing remark on the big picture in a small sip
Wine and sex – they have more in common than just the myth of Dionysus. They are rituals of the body. And rituals require time, respect and awareness.
It is no coincidence that great wines speak softly. And great lovers do not shout. The tenderness, the unsaid, the playfulness – in both worlds, these are the very essence of the experience.
And anyone who has experienced it once knows: the best nights aren’t those where everything was said. Rather, they are those where what remained was allowed to breathe.