love that's worth circling back for | budget bon vivant 02

finding love, and finding bisexuality inescapable

so, big life update if you haven’t already heard: i’m no longer a lesbian.

here, everyone who has known me for years starts asking, “what the hell happened to you?!”

this is that story.

luxe (£20-25)

“drink me” nat cool branco 2023, niepoort
vinho verde, portugal | arinto, avesso, azal, loureiro

george and i met on the platform of liverpool street station in early march, right after i moved to london. we were going on a work trip to the english distillery in norfolk with a few other colleagues.

that’s not the real start of the story, though. the story really begins at the end of june. a close friend has a leaving party and we are the last two people at the function, long after the friend whose party it is has left to go home. at the end of that night, there is a soft spark.

the first time we work together, in the midst of all this beginning, i have an early finish and decide to sit in victoria park and enjoy the rest of the summer evening. i ask george which vinho verde is his favourite - and this is the one he suggests.

vinho verde is the place, the atlantic-influenced region that’s known for making a particular kind of wine (young, fresh, fruity, low-abv, with a slight spritz). it makes other kinds of wine - there is red vinho verde, and sparkling vinho verde - because other grapes grow in the region than alvarinho and loureiro, like vinhao and azal tinto.

you can get vinho verde for £5 in your local tesco, so this is a luxe vinho verde option. this has all the fruit, freshness, and gluggability you associate with the appellation, but niepoort takes a natural, easygoing, fun approach. it’s slightly cloudy, with crystalline fruit. this wine is part of the nat’cool! range of wines, which are made naturally, with low alcohol, and with native grapes to the region, priced affordably, and always bottled in a 1L format.

the first time i bought this wine on george’s recommendation turned into us frequently buying this wine together to sit in the park.

the thing that immediately struck me about george was his earnestness, his heart-on-his-sleeve way of moving through the world. he didn’t play games, and there were no complications. there was never a moment where i wondered how he felt about me. every part of our falling in love felt clear, effortless, and honest. the thing that made me love him was his kindness, his mission to do right by the people he cares abut. in every moment, every interaction, i felt held by kindness and care.

in the four years i was single, there was so many questions - “how do i feel?” “how do they feel?” “do we go on a second date?” “do they want to go on a second date?” - the uncertainty was a painful place to reside.

everything about modern dating is built that way, around rules and guides and things you should or shouldn’t do. every day, a new person on tiktok has a theory for spotting red or green flags, or a theory about how to tell if someone really loves you. for years, i lived that way - counting all the signs, looking for all the flags, following all the rules, trying to put the pieces together into a narrative of how someone felt about me. i was always trying to guess how someone felt, and i always read the signs wrong.

to meet george felt like to arrive, to no longer have to guess. to just know. and for the known answer to be correct.

bargain (£15-20)

maremosso catarratto 2023, cantine rallo
sicily, italy | catarratto

on our third date, george and i went to a small-plates-and-cocktails place on kingsland road in dalston, and we split a bottle of maremosso. it became the drink of the summer: we recommended it to everyone who wanted an orange wine between £15-20.

maremosso is one of those ubiquitous wines in east london, fom wine shops to restaurants. it’s also delicious and surprisingly complex - catarratto wines are often able to balance freshness, a good citrus and orchard fruit character, with nutty and honey notes. this particular cuvee is made from grapes sourced from the marsala area in western sicily, offering good saline freshness from vineyard altitude. it’s a pretty flexible, easygoing wine, comfortable in a lot of different scenarios.

at the time, i knew i really, really liked george, but i hadn’t dated a cis man in six years, and identified as a lesbian for five of those years. my identity as a queer woman, and a lesbian, defined my way of seeing the world, moving through it, and how others perceived me. to suddenly be a bisexual woman with a boyfriend, or “in a straight relationship” was terrifying to me, because queerness was such an integral part of my identity, community, and life. bisexual femme women in relationships with cis men are often the lowest rung on the visibility/queer social gradient - our queerness is erased, our identities reduced to the way we love one person and the relationship we’re in. it doesn’t matter what other relationships we’ve been in, or the nature of our previous same-sex relationships - we become straight women co-opting queer culture for clout.

sexuality is expansive and encompasses many realities. i had identified as bisexual in my early- and mid-twenties, and to circle back felt like a defeat. to be attracted to men again felt like giving up. despite intellectually knowing the expansiveness of sexuality, emotionally the biphobia of toxic lesbian culture had gotten to me. i was afraid to be bisexual, because so many bisexual femmes are not perceived as their full queer selves in current queer culture. i had spent so much of my mid- to late-twenties fighting to be seen loudly as queer, and i was reluctant to lose the identity i had cultivated.

but yet, here was the love i had waited for for a decade. here was someone who loved me, as i loved him, in a true, giving, and gentle way. in all my years of dating all along the gender spectrum, i had been waiting for a love like this. i had dated duds of all genders, and tried to find love in all kinds of weird places. to finally find it with a cis man was not part of the plan, but why deny myself a happy, loving relationship with someone i loved?

steal (£10-15)

vinho verde 2023, adega de monção
vinho verde, portugal | alvarinho, trajadura

the most famous vinho verde in london is “chin chin,” the viral instagram/tiktok beverage conceived by the team behind noble rot. it’s got one of those distinctive “natty wine labels” where a professional graphic designer did the label, not one of those where the winemaker’s child who knows canva slaps the producer, cuvee, and vintage on the front.

to know how to shop for wine is to know how to read a label. a wine label belies a surprising amount of information - ironically, the back of the wine label usually doesn’t have more than the importer’s name and address. the front of the label helps you make an informed buying decision.

we work with the information we have - to most trans people, and most queer folk at large, cishet men are part of the harm. cis men are part of the institution that causes harm every day, and cishet men represent everything that queer people are building community away from. a lot of trans people and lesbians overtly express a certain discomfort around cis men, and that’s fine! i don’t disagree with any of that. in fact, i will never call george “a good cishet man.” i never call him “a good man.” to me, he is “a good egg” because he is a man i trust, in a world where i don’t trust a lot of men.

i’m never going to be the bisexual woman bringing her cishet boyfriend to dalston superstore or a dyke night out. they each occupy a separate space socially - and everyone is content that they remain that way. the same way george won’t be a cishet man at a dyke event is the same way i don’t go to premier league games with him - it’s just not either of our spaces to occupy.

george is not “a good man” in a world where cishet men have caused a lot of harm, and cause harm every day. george is just a man who tries his best to do right by me, the queer woman he loves, and all the other queer people in his life that he loves. it’s a low, “bar in hell” standard, but it doesn’t mean that i deserve “better”, or “more.”

rather, it’s just that: love. like chin chin isn’t a better vinho verde than other vinho verdes around that price point - in fact, it’s arguably popular because of virality and the label - my relationship isn’t any different from the same-sex relationships i’ve been in. in fact, like the adega de moncao vinho verde is actually made by one of the best-regarded co-operatives in vinho verde, my relationship with george is the best relationship i’ve ever been in in my life. it’s the truest love i’ve known, the closest i’ve come to understanding what steadfast, stable, healthy love looks like. it just isn’t showy or glamorous on the outside. it’s not the wine with the tiktok label, it’s the wine with the producer and vintage on the front that you could reach for on any regular day and know that it’s always just as delicious.

recommendations of the week

“drink me” nat cool branco, niepoort, £18.95, the fine wine company. 11%. slightly cloudy, natural, fruity. not overly funky, just a little textured, but immensely smashable. park sipper for sure.

392 kingsland rd, london E8 4AA. where george and i went on our third date. rotating kitchen residencies, live jazz, walk-in only. east london at its finest.

the talbot, 109 mortimer rd, london N1 4JY. pub in de beauvoir with endless balconies, perches, side rooms, and an aperol-themed back garden. where i first admitted to friends that i really, really liked a guy and unsure about how it fit in with the way i saw myself.

maremosso catarratto, £18, wayward wines. 13.5%. orange wine that’s very slightly funky, but overall quite crisp. leathery, nutty notes sit comfortably next to orange peel and grapefruit pith. everyone can get on board with this.

dan’s, 2-4 tottenham rd, london N1 4BZ. probably and possibly mine and george’s favourite wine bar in london, around the corner from where i used to live in dalston. rotating by-the-glass wine list described by wine character (and not by grape or region), a wine shop that pleases seasoned professionals and enthusiasts alike, and an event series that collaborates with every heavy-hitter wine importer in london.

vinho verde 2023, adega de moncao, £11.59, the general wine company. 12%. classic, platonic ideal of vinho verde. lightly spritzy, fruity, crisp. not the most complex of wines, but delicious and well-made. everything you want on a warm day with sunshine and picnic bites.

quinta do ermizio vinho verde “chin chin”, £13, shrine to the vine. 11.5%. london cult classic, versatile, fresh, dry, with a sunny disposition.

107 wine shop & bar, 107 lower clapton rd, london E5 0NP. the successor to everyone’s favourite wine bar pre-2020, p. franco. rotating chef residencies - who all do a lot with a very small space and a hot plate - and a fascinating range of wines. ever-changing, always-interesting by-the-glass selection.