Drink Different – Nobody Says “Let’s Grab Some Caffeine”
| Nobody Says “Let’s Grab Some Caffeine” Nobody has ever said “let’s go and have some caffeine.” It would be weird. Clinical. A bit sad, even. What we say is “let’s grab a coffee.” And we all know that has almost nothing to do with the caffeine. “Let’s grab a coffee” means let’s sit down. Let’s catch up. Let’s get off email and have the conversation properly, the one that needs a table, two chairs and no notifications. Let’s untangle the thing that’s been stuck for a month. Let’s make peace, make a plan, or just make time. The coffee is the excuse. The connection is the point. Yes, caffeine is a drug. Too much of it makes you jittery, it’s a terrible idea at 10 pm, and some people are better off without it. All true. And none of that is what we mean when we offer someone a coffee. We’re not offering them a stimulant. We’re offering them our time. There are alternatives, of course. Matcha. A smoothie. An orange juice with a ginger shot for the wellness crowd. All fine. But “let’s have a coffee” survives as the generic, gracious shorthand for let’s get together and make something better between us. Here’s my argument: wine is exactly the same thing. “Let’s have a glass of wine” is not a request for ethanol. Nobody pours a glass of Chenin because they’re chasing a blood-alcohol level. “Let’s have a wine” is an invitation to slow down, to sit across from someone, to engage for the good of everyone at the table. It’s the evening version of the coffee. The end-of-day exhale instead of the morning ignition. And like coffee, it has alternatives. Beer, gin, vodka, whatever you like. But notice how the wine invitation lands differently. Beer still carries a faintly blokey, lads-at-the-bar coding that decades of marketing built and never quite shook off. Wine doesn’t. “Shall we open a bottle?” is about as inclusive an offer as exists; it doesn’t care much who you are or which side of any line you sit on. It might be the most democratic drink in the room. Then there’s everything wine carries that caffeine never will. Wine is a natural product. It comes from a specific piece of land, in a specific year, made by people who have to respect the soil, the water, the climate and the seasons or they get nothing worth drinking. You cannot rush it, and you cannot fake the place it comes from. That demands stewardship: of the environment, the land, the whole fragile system that makes it possible. There is something honest about a product you literally cannot mass-produce your way out of. And it doesn’t drink alone. Wine drags an entire economy along behind it restaurants, tourism, accommodation, the people who pour it, plate alongside it, and put visitors up for the night. Pull wine out of a region like ours, and you don’t just lose the wine. You lose the lunch, the long weekend, the table booked for eight, and the jobs that hang off all of it.’ Remember COVID when wine was banned. Now, I’m not going to pretend wine is health food. Too much is not good for you. It’s a rotten idea first thing in the morning. Moderation is the whole game, the same as it is with coffee. The difference is mostly the clock: coffee is the drug we’re allowed to love in the morning, wine is the one we’re allowed to love at night. Same ritual, opposite ends of the day. So here’s what frustrates me about my own industry. We spend almost all our energy on defence. Apologising. Adding caveats. Bracing for the next headline about units and limits. We’ve been backed so far into the corner that we’ve half-forgotten what we’re actually selling. We are not selling alcohol. We’re selling the same thing the coffee shop is selling: a reason to sit down together and make the situation better than it was an hour ago. Maybe it’s time we stopped defending the molecule and started celebrating the moment. Nobody invites a friend over for some caffeine. And nobody, in the history of the world, has poured two glasses of something good and meant anything other than: I’m glad you’re here. Let’s talk. Let’s have a wine. Kevin Swart Co-founder and Chief Idiot at Black Elephant Vintners |