We’re taught that wine is a ladder to climb. Anyone who’s ever taken even a single wine class has been presented with the idea that wine is a series of rungs that you must endeavor to scale. At the bottom, there are so-called “entry-level” wines, and at the top are the so-called Serious Wines. Learning about wine is literally presented as a continual ascent to new levels.

But let’s be honest. There’s an underlying falseness to this idea. It’s a similar falseness as avoiding talk about the intoxicating state of mind that wine puts us in. When we talk to normies—those who are not in the wine bubble—and we present wine as a ladder, they can feel that falseness.

I guess this is easy for me to say. I’ve never spent a dime, or a minute, on formal wine education or certifications. All my knowledge has come from the seat of my pants, following my strange passions, traveling and tasting where I could afford—and often where I could not. This is not to say that I don’t have a memory library of thousands of wines, along with in-depth travel to many wine regions, and visits with many winemakers, in my head. But it’s been a wildcat education, unstructured and self-taught. One of my personal mantras has been a quote from Flaubert’s Sentimental Education: “Exuberance is better than taste.”

But here’s something I know deep in my bones to be true: wine is not a ladder to climb. Not even close. Wine is a maze, a labyrinth, one we gladly enter, embracing the fact that we don’t know where it will take us, and that we’ll likely never find our way out. You can simply never learn everything there is to learn about wine. Because wine is as big as the world itself.

I’ve been pondering this over the past few days. I am currently in Logroño, Spain, and my apartment is around the corner from Ajonegro, a Michelin-starred restaurant with a Spanish-Mexican fusion menu. My friend Laura Moreira is the sommelier, and last week I went to have her wine pairing with the prix fixe menu. I’m still thinking about what she poured, because it kind of broke my brain.

Moreira is a native of Galicia working in the heart of Rioja, and her focus ranges all over Spain. She started off with a killer sparkling Getariako Txakolina, 2020 Bodegas Hika Txinpart Espumoso, fresh and crisp with gorgeous pear and brioche notes and a great salty finish.

But with the next wine, we veered deep into the wine labyrinth. This was from Mallorca—a 2022 Ca’n Xicatlà Blanc de Mantonegro. It’s from an obscure grape I’d never tasted before (Mantonegro), a red grape pressed as a white: a blanc de noirs, with a big, complex swirl of citrus, stone, and tropical fruits, along with something herbal and grassy. It was an unbelievable pairing with a dish of sea bass ceviche with a dollop of mango ice cream served over a sauce of Mexican-style charred vegetables, along with homemade nachos.

From there, Moreira jumped far afield to Tokaj, Hungary, with a dry Furmint, 2020 Oremus Mandolás, which has a Spanish connection since it’s a project of the famed Vega Sicilia. This one was perfect with two courses. First, an insanely good dish of roasted eggplant in a fusion sauce of Catalan romesco and Mexican mole, and second an ethereal dish of thin slices of chard and pork neck in a pistachio mole sauce.

This was followed by a 2023 Bodegas Albamar Clarete from Galicia, a rosé that’s a blend of Albariño, Caíño, and Mencía and aged six months in barrel. It’s a muscular, intense rosé and paired great with another fusion dish of stuffed zucchini flowers in a huitlacoche sauce, as well as a taco of crispy pig’s ear and langoustine.

Here we were many courses into a meal in Rioja and we hadn’t moved on to reds. The only Rioja was next, a 2021 Bodegas Exeo Cifras Garnacha Blanca. I’ve been telling people for a while not to sleep on Rioja whites, but I’d never had this one, which was gorgeous with crisp layers of citrus and minerality, but with serious structure. It stood up to a spicy, intense dish of cod in a garlicky, oily, peppery Basque pil pil sauce with poblano chiles.

When we finally got to the red, it wasn’t from Rioja, or even from Spain. Veering further off the beaten path, Moreira poured a 2022 Casta de Vinos "Flor de Roca", from Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California. This wild wine is made from the Ruby Cabernet grape, a hybrid of Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan that was created to withstand a hot climate. Like a lot of Valle de Guadalupe reds (which I enjoy) there’s a unique saltiness that mingles with the red fruit and spice. It was a bold choice to pair with the duck in an orange mole sauce.

Finally, with the dessert, there was a 2023 Ximénez-Spínola Pedro Ximénez, from Jerez, which has great lively acidity and avoids the maple-syrup-ness of too many PX dessert wines.

When my dinner at Ajonegro was over, I needed time to process it all. I think I know Spanish wine pretty well, and six of the seven wines I’d never had before, including grapes I have never tasted before. This was a Michelin-star pairing in Spain that included just one red wine—which came from Mexico. “I want the fusion of the traditional and the modern and the different, since our food shows the tradition of the Spanish and Mexican cultures, but in a different way,” Moreira told me. “Maybe the wines are a little bit weird, but with the food they just work.”

But for me it was more than that. I loved the lack of hierarchy, the lack of feeling bound by expectations, the element of surprise and discovery. The sheer exuberance of the wines.

People in the wine industry love to complain about Gen Z, and how they’re killing the wine industry. I wish I loved anything as much as older people love to wring their hands about this young generation and their wine tastes. Frankly, I think Gen Z is going to save wine from the nonsense of previous generations. Moreira, who is 28 years old, is a great example. Like so many of her peers, she clearly understands: wine is not a ladder.