Advice on Wine?

[peeplj]

My wife and I are curious, we have never been much into wine but want to learn more and find wines we like.

So far our experience is limited, and we've only found a couple of wines we really enjoy for drinking.

At an Italian restaurant, we were recommended a Lambrusco to go with our meal. We both like that wine, very pleasant tasting and doesn't have any unpleasant sensations or aftertastes.

We like sparking wine and during some of our celebrations we've been known to crack a bottle of Asti. Good stuff, but I have found it's best to treat it with respect as it will sneak up on you.

When Shan cooks, there are a couple of dishes where she uses Mogan David port wine with meats. Good wine for cooking but that's about all we ever do with it...one bottle lasts us for ages.

Finally, a friend brought us a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and neither Shan nor I care for it. Has a bitter taste that reminds me of both of corks and of bell peppers, and has a really unpleasant feel in the mouth, very oily feeling, and leaves your mouth absolutely bone dry...sucks the moisture right out of you.

Ok, so based on all of that, can anyone recommend us some wines to try that we might like?

Thanks,

--James

[Denny]

decant a cab and let it breath for a bit.....

bigger glasses (not more wine) swirl about

doesn't mean it was a decent cab...

the dry is from the tannin (from the oak barrel)


a sarah or merlot might be safer.

[Aanvil]

Well... that is quite a question.

There are about as many different wines for as many different likes and tastes.

You can have a grape like that Cabernet from 20 different vineyards and as many makers from as many countries and each will be different. You can get a Cabernet from a Chateau of Bordeaux in France and find it dry and almost chalky yet the same grape from a vineyard from Napa in California and have it plummy/jammy with big smells of fruit and chocolate.

While you can guess what a particular area or vineyard will produce you never know what nature will have done and what the vintner might have had up his sleeve for any particular vintage or blend.

Its what I think makes wine drinking fun.

There is an endless source of discovery.

Most importantly.

Don't let anyone tell you what you SHOULD like.

What you SHOULD do is enjoy what you are drinking.

There are times that you will actually get a bad bottle.

Its why people go though that ritual of looking at the cork and smelling and sampling when you buy a bottle at a restaurant.

At least you have the chance to send it back.

I've had plenty of very expensive wine that I wouldn't give a nickel for!

For the upper range I try to put myself in a position of being the sampler and not the payer.

There are different styles of wine that I do believe require an "acquired taste"

Honestly. It will take a few tries. You will find yourself starting to enjoy them.

Reds can be a little harsh but there is so much goodness in them.

If you like Lambrusco you might want to try a French Rose wine.

They are light and not too tart with a hint of apples and strawberrys with a little pepper.

Its a bridge from the sweet Lambrusco to dry reds.

You might also look for some white wines.

You can find a nice California Chardonnay that is not too dry or tart.

Best to ask your wine seller for help.

You don't have to spend too much.

I regularly find very good everyday wines for 5 to 10 bucks if you know where to look.

Do you have a Trader Joe's near you?

Don't give up!

Wine is fun!

I drink wine everyday.

In fact I have a glass with me right now.

[s1m0n]

Buy the bottle with the prettiest label.

~~

Seriously. When it comes to wine, the soil can matter as much as the variety of the grapes and the skill of the vintner. Buy a bunch of wines, drink them, and then decide what you liked about it and what you didn't. Or cut down the variables--pick a specific grape, country, or vinyard and buy and try a range of wines with that characteristic, and again decide what you like and why. Bear in mind that people tend to rate higher priced bottles higher: how expensive you think the bottle is alters how you taste it.

[Innocent Bystander]

America is a hot and dry place compared to Europe. That's why Americans drink coolers instead of wine, and why whiskey has such a bad reputation. The effects are modified by the difference in climate. So, when you drink wine you might like to mix it with a little water, as Europeans used to do. Not in the case of sparkling wine, though.

Wine snobs seem to favour burgundies. I've found I like bordeaux better.
The difference is obvious in the bottle. Burgundies have square-ish rounded shoulders. Bordeaux bottles have sloping shoulders. They are gentler, less harsh, to my taste.

A Swiss girl I used to know gave me a useful rule of thumb in buying wines. The darker the glass, the better the wine. Wine fades with sunlight, so the colour of the wine is preserved in darker glass. It's not worth wasting expensive glass on poor wine, so light glass bottles means the wine is not such good quality. This doesn't apply to Vino Verde nor white wine, nor rosé.

A friend of mine serves wine in tumblers. I hate this. I wish she wouldn't. It tastes better from paris goblets, or something that shape. White wine, rosé and sparkling wine from flutes. Don't mess me about, you know what I mean. Glass flutes for wine.

If you're having trouble finding something to your taste, it's worth indulging on a regular blended wine. Mateus Rosé, for instance, is not excellent, but is consistently good - or at least, consistently the same. It's blended to be that way. You know what you are getting. It will be fine, unless some idiot has left the case in strong sunlight for a week, and the stuff has boiled in the bottle.

[emmline]

Buy the bottle with the prettiest label.

~~

You're making fun of me and you may not even have known it.

[SteveShaw]

Californian wines at the budget end tend towards the safe and anodyne, lots of juicy, jammy fruit that you may like to start off with but which you'll get fed up of soon. Some Chilean reds have pleasant, warm, ripe fruitiness with a bit more structure (a bit of tannin and acidity for a nice bite). Try a bottle of Casillero del Diablo if you have it your end. Cheap French wines are usually horrible and mean with their fruit. Aussie wines at the cheap end are cheerful bottles of juice. Always serve reds unchilled, except possibly for the lightest Beaujolais nouveau and that kind of thing (and that horrid Lambrusco of yours ) Try a Californian Chardonnay for a white, then move on to a nice, crispy Sauvignon Blanc. I'd avoid oaky wines, for starters at least. All whites should be chilled. Just because you had a negative experience with a particular grape variety doesn't mean you should never try that variety again. Just try a different brand next time. Big, popular brands like Gallo are popular because they are unchallenging and easy to quaff, but they could make a good starting point.

[Makar]

As has already been said - such a choice from around the world, just go for it till your liver complains.

I avoid Italian and German wines, although some can be good of course. New Zealand for some whites of various grapes. Australia, S Africa and Spain for some nce robust reds - Chile too of course. I don't buy much French but a nice Nuit St George or a Chateau neuf de pape can be marvellous with a bit of salty blue cheese like roquefort. One of my favourite chilean wines is Errazuriz cab sauv. I don't drink many US wines but some nice stuff over where you are. When in the states we often drink chilled zinfandel when it's really hot, but that stuff goes down like pop! A bottle can disappear as quick as your legs.

The big thing for me, that somebody else noted, is the glass and the prep. Let a big red breathe for a bit before hand - decant it. The glass is paramount - but that goes for all drinks, each has its own glass. A nice big crystal glass for me (I have silver goblets but not too keen on the metal against lips - very decadent though in front of the fire on a cold night), and only a little bit at a time. I hate a glass filled over the half way mark. Doesn't mean that I don't revisit the bottle till its done of course. Can you tell I haven't had a drink for a couple of weeks? A glass of wine tonight for sure - I have a bottle of Cono Sur from Chile waiting for me

cheers
Stephen

[chas]

Based on what you said, I'd recommend a Portuguese Douro. Inexpensive, lots of flavor, not much bite. Beware that they're often sold before they've properly aged, though -- look for something at least five years old.

[Wanderer]

I like to go to wine tasting places...I'm lucky in that Dallas has several. These are places where you can pay a pretty cheap price ($8-20) and get 4 or 5 partial glasses of wine. Each glass will be a different wine. You can taste them all and write down what you like.

This gives you the opportunity to taste several types of wine and explore your palate without having to invest in hundreds of dollars in bottles of wine.

[CHasR]

for about a week I'd been trying to think up a 'controversial' topic that's neiter Politics or Religion...this is it...
well since everyone's spouting opinions I 'll chime in too:

(All 'IMHO')

Italian * Although there's SO much to love about Italian cuisine, its wine is just not in the running. sorry.

French *****. I'll drink any wine grown in France. any day. no matter what. with any food.

Austrailian* There's a reason it's called 'Yellow Tail'.

California ****. Almost, but not quite French.

Hungarian (Tokay) ***. yum. almost in the sherry category.

Spanish /Portugese***. Ususally their good wine goes into Sherry or porto, imo. They keep a little aside for drinking as wine, and it can be surprisingly good.

German/Austrian ( Gewirtztraminer) ***. Good, but gotta be in the right mood for it.

Shiraz * cough medicine.

Anything labeled: Zinfandel, Blush, rose: *. Another word for "we-mixed-a-$hitty-red+white-together-and-came-up-with-this-for-sale".

New Zealand (no stars) hahaha..yeh..right...

[emmline]

Australian* There's a reason it's called 'Yellow Tail'.

Vindicated. Whew. Everytime el esposo hikes it over to the corner vino store, I say "but NOT Yellowtail!."
Invariably he comes back with another 1.5 L Yellowtail and, more tolerably, a Lindeman's of the same size.
Luckily, since the weather is getting crisper, I've segued into my red wine temperament and can largely ignore the Roo peepee. (Nuts. That was a flagrant violation of the Pepsi rule, I just know it.)

[Makar]

for about a week I'd been trying to think up a 'controversial' topic that's neiter Politics or Religion...this is it...
well since everyone's spouting opinions I 'll chime in too:

Aye well, interesting choices CHasR. You seem to have missed Chile and S Africa off of your radar? There are many superb Aussie wines of course but if it concentrates your piss so then maybe reds are not a great thing where you bide. I think as somebody else said, drinks taste different in different countries/climates. I don't fancy the weather where you are by the sounds

[CHasR]

for about a week I'd been trying to think up a 'controversial' topic that's neiter Politics or Religion...this is it...
well since everyone's spouting opinions I 'll chime in too:

Aye well, interesting choices CHasR. You seem to have missed Chile and S Africa off of your radar? There are many superb Aussie wines of course but if it concentrates your piss so then maybe reds are not a great thing where you bide. I think as somebody else said, drinks taste different in different countries/climates. I don't fancy the weather where you are by the sounds

Never tried Chilean or S African yet....my state controls the liqour supply.

http://www.lcb.state.pa.us/

We usually go next door to New Jersey to buy unusual grapes.
Aus/NZ product, like Italian, has never floated my boat. O well.
The main thing is to try wines , find grapes one likes, and enjoy them. that's a universal rule...

[dwest]

We have a local cheese and wine store. One of the employees there has tastes that run similar to ours so that is how I choose my wine, The owner, who is one of the most knowledgeable people I have met concerning wine, has very different taste than ours so I never ask his advice. It took a few false starts to learn this. The label thing is reliable too(not!)especially if it has birds on it. I also have a friend who has severe asthma, he is very careful about the wines he chooses and he retains the names of every label he has tried so I trust his judgement too. Origin, condition, wood species of the barrels used in aging is critical to asthmatics. Never ever cook with a wine you would not enjoy drinking that's why we only drink wine from Wollersheim Winery, Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, you betcha! Or cherry wine from Door County, oh yeah!