Redefining the Wine Lexicon: Q&A with Wheeler
Anyone who’s ever worked with wine knows that doing so requires a certain knowledge—an intimate one—of fruits. Before starting to learn about wine, I had never given much thought to the category of stone fruits, or the nuanced flavors of a Granny Smith apple as opposed to a green one. I even furiously avoided those nasty deli fruit salads made of pallid cantaloupe and honeydew cubes, only to be told while training as a server for the first time that those same fruits could describe half of the white wines on a wine list.
Resting the weight of the wine world (or most of it) on fruits has, for a long time, been an injustice to a dietary group that never asked for that kind of responsibility. Using the same few berries to describe every single red wine is a disservice to the limitless characteristics imparted on reds by their terroirs and what those red wines are capable of making us feel; it’s a practice in semantic satiation. And though the natural wine community has rendered many other words meaningless (you know the ones: funky, chuggable, crushable, glou glou), it’s slowly starting to develop a more useful vocabulary, thanks to those willing to have a little fun.
“Using the same few berries to describe every single red wine is . . . a practice in semantic satiation.”
Enter Wheeler (he/him), the former beverage director at Lil’ Deb’s Oasis in Hudson, New York, and the creator of wine journeys. Wheeler, who grew up in Napa Valley, started working at Deb’s in 2016 just two months after the restaurant was opened by artist-chefs Carla Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black. “I often joke that the vibe is: Hannah and Carla are the parents and I’m the kid they had when they were way too young,” he said during our call. Through erudition prompted by pure necessity, Wheeler became Deb’s General Manager and Wine Guy. His wine journeys feel like psychoanalysis (in a good way) and are effective because they distract diners into using gut instincts to answer questions that reveal where they’re willing and wanting to go with wine.
Though Wheeler recently left Lil’ Deb’s Oasis, he’s still curating the restaurant’s Sun & Moon Wine Club, a monthly wine subscription of two wines that demonstrate balanced dualism accompanied by an original poem illustrating the tension between them. We hope our conversation with him will inspire you to go on your own wine journey.
Wine Zine: How did you get involved with natural wine?
Wheeler: It was a nightmare restaurant experience that first introduced me to what natural wine is and I remember very vividly the first three natural wines I had. What drew me to it was the fact that I was a college student and that if I learned about it, I could add 0’s to my check; if I knew how to sell wine, I could make money. It was one of those Wild West service jobs where you took home all your tips and I learned pretty quickly that if you knew what you were talking about, people would trust you and they’d buy what you’re selling. It’s a very unromantic truth, but it’s true.
“I have a lot of internal logic about which journey questions are about the whole spectrum and which ones specify further within a category.”
So making money was what drew me in, but what made me stay was Hannah and Carla [from Lil’ Deb’s Oasis] being very radical in the ways that they were so generous with their projects. If someone had a skill, they figured out how that person could have that skill in the structure of Deb’s. I’m kind of like a sponge when it comes to learning new things. As a hobby right now, I’m learning massage and I feel my brain doing the same thing that it did when I started learning about wine. I saw a psychic on my birthday last year and she changed my life. She said that I’ll be eternally young because I will always be learning. She also said I’ll live my life in service to others. A clarifying thing about that psychic session was that the current running through all of my interests is people, specifically helping them. I’m not Mother Teresa and I’m not a doctor, but it brings me joy when I can make a person experience something better, whether it’s helping them feel safe and joyful about ordering wine or massaging them. I just like making people feel good, period. And I think I found that in wine in a few ways. One is in deconstructing that it’s a scary thing—not everyone has the time or desire to learn about a constantly shifting bureaucratic institution with standards that are insane. Traditional wine language bums me out so much. The deeper you go, the more insular it is.
WZ: You’ve become known for offering guests at Lil’ Deb’s Oasis wine journeys. How did you come up with the concept?
W: This answer is also not very romantic. It happened because people underestimate that when you’re opening a small restaurant with no investors, it’s like a newborn baby in the sense that no one’s sleeping, no one has enough time, there’s never enough of anything. I was finishing my undergrad degree as I was becoming Lil’ Deb’s lead server but I somehow found the time to read wine books and learn it all. The journeys started because we didn’t know how to sell wine. Anyone who knows me will tell you that my main way of communicating is through analogy. My friends, if we’re at a party, will even make a drinking game about it and count the number of times I use analogies. I was at this table once and I asked them what wine they normally liked. It was a rough going. The bottles I’d bring them weren’t the ones they were wanting and I don’t know where this came from, but I asked them: if they had a log cabin in the woods, would they want a jacuzzi tub on the outside or a bear skin rug on the inside? They said they’d want a bear skin rug, I brought them a wine, and they liked it.
I have a lot of internal logic about which journey questions are about the whole spectrum and which ones specify further within a category. If someone wants a white wine, I’ll talk about Cate Blanchett, because a Carol is different than a Galadriel. If someone wants a red wine, it’s important to determine if they’re feeling adventurous or if they’re feeling a more classic vibe. Wine journeys were definitely born out of an immediate desire for efficiency.
WZ: What do you try to evoke through your method and how can it be applied to the language we use to describe any wine?
“My forever feeling is don’t think too hard.”
W: If there’s anything about my philosophy of wine I want to be known for is that I just hate the way that personal ego creeps into wine. So many people, on the surface, will say they want to connect people to wine, but it becomes about that person and their taste and their list. I don’t care what people are drinking as long as they want it. There’s this latent colonial vibe of “I’m going to change this or I’m going to put my flag in the sand and people will see me reinvent and rediscover all of this stuff.” It’s not about that for me. I’m trans, and when I started working in this, all the reps and all the distributors knew me as this aspiring young woman. You hear trans guys talk about this a lot, but the difference between how I was treated after I transitioned, when I had become a white guy on the surface, was huge. The ways people talk to you about your ideas, decisions, or tastes really changes.
I think wine journeys are an effective tool if you feel joy about using it as a tool and if the people at the table want it. The point of wine journeys becomes obscured when you stop listening and sometimes the answer is that the person doesn’t want a wine journey. And just because you’re having fun or speaking in more accessible language doesn’t mean you’re not taking the wine seriously. My forever feeling is don’t think too hard. If you have to think too hard, then you’ve already lost. If choosing a wine is bringing more stress than pleasure, whatever you’re doing to choose that wine is wrong.
“. . . you’re the one making the rules and people want to try to figure out the rules and follow them. Of course, you’ll always have your Patrick Batemans and Scott Disicks, but for the most part, people want to follow the rules.”
WZ: How do you think the language around wine can become more useful in helping people discover wines they’ll love?
W: I think that there isn’t a lot of work on the consumer’s end. I think the majority of the work lies with the people selling the wine. Whenever you have a space where you’re selling wine, you’re the one making the rules and people want to try to figure out the rules and follow them. Of course, you’ll always have your Patrick Batemans and Scott Disicks, but for the most part, people want to follow the rules. People going to a restaurant already have an open mind, to a certain extent. And it’s about bedside manner—don’t make people feel stupid, let them have fun. It’s literally just about listening, and it’s crazy that that’s such a revolutionary concept. We don’t have to change everything—it’s not a new system. It’s about changing yourself and changing how you talk about wine to people because you’re the one with the time and the resources and the power, and if you’re the one with the power, you need to release that power.
There’s a critique of queer theory which is: if being queer is about being alive and always in flux and uncategorizable, putting it into a structure and trying to explain it or define it or make rules for it is the antithesis of what queer is. And I think natural wine in general has put itself into a similar problem. People want rules, people want structure. But the trap that many sommeliers fall into is wanting to make rules. They think they know better and know more. I see it as, I’m just a vessel here, I know how to get you where you're going and that’s it. I’m a travel agent. It’s not my business where you want to go. I don’t care if you want a light rosé or a rosato, I really don’t! I just want you to get the wine you want. That’s my job.
WZ: What has been your favorite or most memorable wine journey?
W: That’s a tough one. All of them! My favorite—and it’s not a specific one, it’s just a type—is having a multigenerational family where the kids are shy and telling their mom not to embarrass them. I think it’s sweet when the journey can work for the hip young person and their boomer parent. It’s almost more satisfying when it’s someone who isn’t “in-the-know” and isn’t as comfortable with natural wine. That’s when it’s really satisfying for me.
Wheeler graciously led me on my own wine journey, which I’m bravely including here despite the humiliating answer to the first question.
Wheeler: Who was your first major childhood celebrity crush?
WZ: Gregory Smith when he starred in “Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century.”
Wheeler: What’s the first thing you want to do when COVID is over?
WZ: Escape to Mexico City.
Wheeler: Last question. What’s your favorite thing on a playground?
WZ: The swing set.
The wines:
Joe Swick’s 2020 “Only Zuul” from Oregon, Germany's Weingut Schlossmühlenhof 2020 “Das ist kein Orange,” and France’s 2016 La Porte Saint Jean “La Perlée” Anjou. Each wine pulled at my heartstrings like Gregory Smith would when I was thirteen years old, transported me to other countries (yes, Oregon is considered “abroad” when you live in New York), and provided the breezy head rush attainable by following the path of a parabola.
Words by The Wine Zine’s Newsletter Editor, Khiara Ortiz