The winemaker facing the revolution of dogma-free wine

For years, the wine industry built an almost religious atmosphere around wine. Rituals, cryptic language, elitist labels: everything seemed designed to keep a distance between the beverage and the average consumer. But lately, something is changing in the world of wine, and the experts themselves are leading that transformation. When Lionel Messi revealed in a recent interview that he enjoys drinking wine with Sprite, he not only shared a personal preference: he questioned years of conventions that the industry itself had normalized as unquestionable truths. That simple statement sparked a deep reflection among winemakers and sommeliers about who should define how wine is enjoyed.

When wine stopped being food to become protocol

To understand the current crisis of trust around wine, it’s necessary to look back in history. In Argentina, for decades, wine was simply food: it was consumed at family tables, diluted with soda or soft drinks without anyone questioning the practice, shared as a natural part of social life. Wine was not a subject of study nor a status symbol; it was, simply, part of everyday life.

That reality began to change in the late 1990s, when the industry decided to “professionalize” the relationship with this beverage. Aiming to position itself in international markets and improve production quality, the sector also imported a philosophy: turning wine into a symbol of refinement. What was once an accessible food became an object that required knowledge, education, and a certain cultural level to be enjoyed “correctly.”

Julián Díaz, sommelier and co-creator of La Fuerza vermouth, observes this phenomenon clearly: “It’s not the same to communicate a high-end wine as one meant for everyday drinking. The mistake was placing wine in a position that wasn’t natural for Argentina. Here, it has always been consumed both plain and with soda or soft drinks. In the interior of the country, that practice still persists, but the industry tried to erase it from the map.”

The three psychological barriers trapping consumers

Magdalena Pesce, CEO of Wines of Argentina, coined a term that perfectly captures the problem: “performance anxiety.” It’s the feeling that drinking wine is an exam you can fail, and that evaluators are everywhere: the sommelier, friends at the table, society as a whole.

This anxiety manifests on three different levels. First is the intellectual barrier: the fear of pronouncing technical terms, of commenting on aromas you don’t recognize, or appearing ignorant in front of words like “terroir,” “retrogusto,” or “tannins.” For many new consumers, this barrier is enough to steer them away from wine toward beverages that don’t require specialized vocabulary, like beer.

The second is the protocol barrier. It’s not just about knowing what to say, but what to do: how to hold the glass, whether to swirl it, what gesture to make when the sommelier offers a taste before serving. All this creates a constant feeling of being evaluated, of making mistakes others will notice.

The third barrier is perhaps the most insidious: status. Here, the fear is of not choosing the “correct” bottle, the one that conveys the right social message. This paralyzes consumers because they feel their choice defines who they are. As a result, many end up always buying the same recognized brands, those they’ve “already tried” and that have a certain reputation, instead of daring to discover new options.

Soda, ice, and soft drinks: when wine rejects its own rules

The radical aspect of Messi’s confession wasn’t so much what he said, but that he said it. Because the reality is that many people already do what he describes: dilute wine with soft drinks, add ice on hot days, turn it into something refreshing. The difference is that they do it in secret, ashamed, as if committing a sacrilege.

Alejandro Vigil, enologist at Catena Zapata and El Enemigo, celebrated Messi’s words as “the best thing that has happened to the wine industry in the last five years” because, in ten seconds, Messi managed to communicate something that the industry has been trying to explain for years without success: that everyone drinks wine as they want, and that’s perfectly valid.

“Messi dismantled the last barrier to wine: the fear of judgment from others,” reflected Magdalena Pesce. And with that barrier broken, movements questioning the industry’s own norms began to emerge.

Reserva de los Andes launched a few years ago a brand called Sifonazo, whose label shows someone spraying a stream of soda over red wine served in a glass, not a wine glass. Juan Carlos Chavero, enologist of that winery, recounts a revealing anecdote: during a presentation at a wine shop, after explaining how to enjoy wine, he added that one should never teach someone to be happy drinking it. “If someone finds happiness in adding ice or soda, that’s perfectly fine,” he said. The shop owner immediately contradicted him, citing “two great enologists” who had taught him that it was sacrilege.

That was the trigger for Sifonazo. “We decided to break the idea that you can add soda or ice not only to cheap wine but to any wine you want,” explains Chavero. “Adding soda to a twenty-thousand-peso wine doesn’t kill it; it just dilutes it, something we accept doing with a hundred-thousand-peso whiskey without question.”

Finca Las Moras, through its Dadá line, went even further. “The idea was to be disruptive regarding the ceremony around wine, to show that it offers multiple ways to enjoy it and that there should be no censorship by experts,” says Pablo Moraca, marketing manager of the winery. His slogan: “Open your mind.”

What enologists think about mixing their masterpiece

What would an enologist feel if they discovered someone serving their most prized wine with lime-lemon soda? The answer might surprise you.

Laura Catena, director of Catena Zapata, invokes Albert Camus: “We should choose how we take and live our lives. If someone likes a Domaine Nico with Sprite, I think that’s perfect. I wouldn’t do it myself because I believe it would overshadow its floral notes. But I believe the wine world has room for everyone: for those who mix it with soda, for those who make a kind of fernet, and for those obsessed with terroir.”

Alberto Arizu, fourth generation leading Luigi Bosca, has a pragmatic approach: “If someone tells me they drank Finca Los Nobles with Sprite, I ask them to tell me exactly how they prepared it, and I’ll probably try it. Wine is a personal experience, and everyone enjoys it in their own way. If it brings pleasure and makes you want to share, then it fulfills its purpose.”

Alejandro Vigil concludes with an idea that completely frees the consumer: “Once the wine is paid for, it belongs to whoever bought it. They can drink it alone, with ice, with soda, with soft drinks. If they’re going to mix, a tip: choose a wine without oak, fruity, so it fulfills its true role: to refresh.”

The industry questions itself

The decline in per capita wine consumption in Argentina also explains these transformations. Paradoxically, although less wine is being consumed, there is a search for higher quality. This has benefited premium wines, which have more resources for promotion, while table wines have been sidelined. Vigil points out the problem: “Wineries that produce exclusive wine can promote themselves. The more popular wines, in crisis, have fewer resources.”

This has contributed to the perception that wine is only for the sophisticated, when in reality, it’s more complex: there are two different wine cultures with two different appreciations and for different moments. It’s not the same a wine that conveys landscapes in the bottle as a table wine in a tetra brick to drink with friends at a barbecue.

“We can’t let the culture of mixing with soda, soft drinks, and ice be lost,” Vigil warns. Because that practice isn’t ignorance; it’s part of Argentine identity.

The 21st-century enologist: guardian of enjoyment, not of rules

What’s happening is a redefinition of the role of the modern enologist. It’s no longer just about mastering the craft of winemaking but understanding that there’s a gap between what experts believe should be enjoyed and what people actually enjoy.

Magdalena Pesce summarizes it: “The industry turned wine into an object of intellectual cult, creating the idea that understanding it is a prerequisite for enjoying it. That’s harmful because it creates an unnecessary filter.” The enologist’s task, then, is to help dissolve that filter, not reinforce it.

The revolution Messi accelerated with his comment about Sprite isn’t against the experts but in favor of freedom. And the winemakers themselves are discovering that this freedom is, ultimately, the best thing that can happen to their beverage: that it be loved without guilt, shared without fear, enjoyed without judges.