The wine you’re supposed to choose, but...

The plastic card feels heavier than it is. I have owned it for forty-two minutes. It sits in my wallet between a gym membership I have used exactly once, and my driver’s licence.

Three weeks of documents that would make a bureaucrat faint with delight, employer NOCs and residency checks have finally delivered my permission to buy wine in Dubai. I intend to use it properly.

Tonight, I have an occasion. I want one good bottle. A bottle that looks as though I have thought about it.

The store is cool, bright and immaculate, with rows of bottles under precise lighting, each quietly making its case. Burgundy. Bordeaux. Champagne. Tuscany. Napa. Names I know, names I recognise but could not explain, and names that make me wish I had paid more attention at wine school.

I head towards the whites. It’s hot outside.

Chablis seems appropriate.

I pick up a Premier Cru from a producer I recognise. The label is restrained; the bottle is heavy. The back mentions limestone soils, old vines, and family ownership. It has the calm confidence of something that never needed to introduce itself.

I look at the price.

It has confidence too.

Beside it is another bottle. A producer I do not know. Cleaner label. Lower price. Nothing suggests I should already have heard of it.

I pick it up, read the label, put it down, and pick up the Chablis again.

This should not be difficult. I am buying wine, not appointing a central bank governor.

A salesman comes over.

“Looking for something?”

“One good white,” I say.

He looks at the two bottles.

I hold up the Chablis with the easy smile of someone who has already made his decision.

He takes it from me and turns the bottle in his hands, reading the label.

I wait.

He keeps looking. I smile more. He looks at the back. Still nothing.

And now, inexplicably, I am wondering what he has noticed that I have not.

Perhaps he is checking the vintage. Perhaps the producer. Perhaps there is some tiny detail separating the people who know from the people who merely buy.

Or perhaps he is simply reading the label.

The problem is that I cannot ask.

I have just spent three weeks obtaining a licence to buy wine. I am not about to admit that I need a licence to choose one.

So I make the sort of knowing movement people make when they hope nobody will notice they are not entirely sure.

“Good one?” I ask.

He nods.

“Good wine.”

That should settle it. It doesn’t.

Because the word in my head is but.

Good wine, but…

But, what?

Is there something better? Is this the bottle I am supposed to choose, or merely the bottle I recognise? What if I choose badly? What if everyone else knows something I do not?

This is one of wine’s more peculiar tricks. We imagine we are buying according to taste, yet the decision arrives carrying a small invisible syllabus.

We know certain regions matter. Certain producers matter. Certain vintages matter. Price can be a signal. A heavy bottle can feel reassuring. A label with enough history can make us feel less exposed.

None of that is necessarily nonsense. Expertise matters. Some wines are better than others.

The problem begins when knowing what is respected becomes confused with what we will enjoy.

I look again at the unfamiliar bottle.

It may be excellent. It may be ordinary. I have no idea.

That is the uncomfortable part.

The Chablis gives me something I can explain. I know the region, the grape and what sort of conversation it can survive.

I put the other bottle back.

The Chablis goes into my basket.

At the counter, the salesman scans my licence, then the bottle. My card goes through. He places the bottle in a plain white bag.

“Enjoy your evening.”

“Thank you.”

Outside, Dubai is doing what Dubai does in summer: reminding me that climate control is civilisation’s better idea.

I put the bottle on the passenger seat.

It looks exactly right there.

Proper bottle. Proper occasion.

I start the car.

At the first traffic light, I glance at it.

And there it is again.

That tiny, irritating question.

Not whether it is a good wine.

But whether it is the wine I really wanted.

I have forty-two minutes of permission to go and buy.

Apparently, the part where I decide what I actually like takes a little longer.

Wine should be enjoyed. Drink responsibly.

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