Wine for the novice.

Slinwagh

Slinwagh

Slinwagh

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I have never really taken much interest in drinking wine mainly because I couldn't tell a good one from a bad one.

Now I appreciate that a "good" wine is very subjective when it comes to wine but like all things in life some things are better than others.

I have just been on the Decanter website and to be honest that site is everything I hate about wine, the snobbery and the rigmarole of tasting etc, I prefer the James May approach to wine if I'm honest!

So what do you look for when it comes to drinking wine, obviously if you like it you like it but are there any wines out there that you could use as a reference point to choose other wines if that makes sense.
 
Sorry not an expert myself. I have a few I love but funny enough they are all fairly cheap. I'm guessing you're after something a little higher up the scale though. So I'd suggest finding a good local wine specialist (not an off-license but somewhere that only sells wine) and asking them, giving your budget, whether you want red, white, etc, type of flavour. They usually know what they are talking about.
 
They don't have to be "up the scale" as you put it and I don't mind red or white wine to be honest.

There are just so many wines on the shelves today it is a case of where do you start really !!!
 
Best bet with supermarket wines is to go by price. Different story if not buying from supermarket though.

Try to experiment with various wines (buy one a week or something from the supermarket), and figure out what grapes you like, and what type of wine you like (full-bodied vs light etc) and go from there...All about personal preference really...I'm certainly no expert, but I like drinking wine, and I'd like to think I could tell the difference between a £4 bottle of wine, and a £20 bottle.

There's LOADS of books around if you want to investigate further...just wander into Waterstones and check out the wine bit.
 
I quite like Wolf Blass in general. Not sure how it ranks in the wine scale but there are a number of different reds and whites at different price ranges and I have found they are all pretty good.
The reds seem less acidy than some and are usually full of flavour - not sure how else to describe it!

Andrew
 
ajf said:
I quite like Wolf Blass in general. Not sure how it ranks in the wine scale but there are a number of different reds and whites at different price ranges and I have found they are all pretty good.
The reds seem less acidy than some and are usually full of flavour - not sure how else to describe it!

Andrew
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Wolf Blass Cabernet Sauvignon is currently on offer at Sainsbury's for the delectable price of £5.49 mmmm

Good supermarket wine.
 
Penfold red wines are full bodied, not acidic and compliment red meat, cheese, Italian style cooking.

White wines such as piers porter and an excellent all rounder as well

Wolf Blass is an excellent wine.

All are good for quaffing:D
 
wine is a very personal prefference but its great trying to find that perfect bottle :) and remember if it's a bad one you can always use it for your gravy .
 
I'm not an expert but I can give you some pointers from my alcoholism and give you an idea what to avoid.

Firstly avoid the "half price" bottles in Sainsburys down to £4 because 9 times out of 10 they are artificially priced up specifically to go on special offer and at best you'll be disappointed but end up with a nasty headache at worst.

A good entry level wine is about £6 full price these days and will ensure you get a clean wine low in sulphites, it's the sulphites usually that give you a hangover. If you can, try and avoid anything that boasts to be oaky at this price range unless someone has specifically said it is good because there's a lot of fake oaking and again it will lead to a headache and bit of a rough stomach. This goes for both red and white so initially choose an unoaked Chardonnay over an oaked one for example.

Beginners reds I always recommend full bodied sweet and heavy with plenty of alcohol. One of the tricks some of the vinters are using is to lower the alcohol slightly so they can bang the bottles out quicker and cheaper. As a general rule I've found if it's around the 13-14% mark for red and 12-12.5% for white it's better than if it's lower. French wine is an exception because their reds are about 12.5% maximum and white about 11%.

Generally the hotter and sunnier the climate the sweeter and fuller the wine so Australia, South Africa and California are good places to start.

Reds look for Merlot which is sweet, full bodied with tanin aftertaste, Shiraz (also called Syrah) which is sweet, fruity and full bodied and Cabernet Sauvignon which is a slightly lighter fruitier taste. Pay a bit more and get a Californian Zinfandel which is sweet and spicy and slightly woody tasting. Spanish Rioja is a much drier red and lower in alcohol with more oaky taste. Not everyone likes Rioja because of it, but you could try a Rioja reserva which is an older fuller bodied taste and becoming popular.

Whites I'll normally say start with a not too dry unoaked Chardonnay and drink it chilled. Not everyone likes oak in Chardonnay and if it's fake oaking it'll give you a headache and acid. Sauvignon Blanc is a nice smooth white, again don't get too dry for your first go.
 
Go wine tasting. It's the best way to learn. Though ultimately it is subjective - but there are general "rules" that'll help you with your wine edification and degustation of them, being taught is the best way for it. Furthermore it's quite a fun thing to do. :)
 
brown brothers - chenin blanc. amazing white (infact i like all brown brothers wines). but if you want something sweet and dont really like the taste of a very nice red or white, go for blossom hill white zinfandel, always a good choice.
 
Jonny69 said:
A good entry level wine is about £6 full price these days
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I've heard that 6 or 7 quid is the price point where you are effectively getting the best value wine for your money. When you pay 4 quid for a bottle of plonk, all of that cash is effectively taken up by the price of bottling, shipping and other payments associated with getting goods onto the shelf. If you pay a couple of quid more you're getting 2 quids' worth of wine. A four quid bottle might only get you wine worth (say) 20 pence once all the costs are taken into account.
 
There are about six things to think about.

1) Price.
You get what you pay for. Mostly. Under £3 per bottle is usually pretty dire. Over £8 is very rapidly diminishing returns. Very expensive wines are something of an acquired taste in my opinion. Watch out for muddle marketing though. One major high street chain massively put up its orices a few years ago and now sells on the basis of 3 for the price of two. Supermarkets love half price offers but when you taste the stuff it is clearly a £4 bottle being sold at £8 for a short period of time so that the £4 half price offer is legal. Be careful. Mail order from something like the Times Wine club or similar may be the best way to go. My personal sweet spot is the genuinly priced £5 to £7 range.

2) Coutry of origin.
Chile, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, US on the one hand. More limited range of grape but very consistent. Personally I don't much like US or South African wines - can't put my finger on why though. I mostly go for Australian, New Zealand or Chilean stuff.

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal on the other. Massive range of diferent tastes. Some the best in the world, some appalling. Germany for sweet whites particularly. Portugal for port. France for champagne. Spain for mighty Riojas and sherry (Not Emva Cream or similar!). Wide range of grapes. Masssive, Massive range of tastes for such a relatively small geographical area.

3) The Grape.
Red: Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz (Syrah in France), Merlot, and many others with Tempranillo (spain), worth a special mention.

White: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Grigio to name some common ones.

Rose: Just a different wine making style using red and white varieties.

Note that there are dozens and dozens of different grapes, you can spend your life exploring them. Do a bit of googling for more info.

I almost always buy Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon or Sauvignon Blanc these days. I have gone off Chardonnay.

4) The mix.
A £7 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon based wine from Chile, Australi or France will all taste great, will taste a bit the same and somewhat different all at once. Find a country and region you like. This might take some experimentation and is fun.

5) Serving.
Wine goes best with food. If you sit in front of the TV and drink a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon it will be nice. Drink it with a roast beef dinner and it is elevated to a new level. Somehow the flavours of the beef and the wine mix in your mouth and enhance each other. It IS a fact that certain wines work best with certain foods. This is not snobbery it is fact. Having said that most wine I drink is not with food. Most is in front of TV or Computer games. Some wines work better than others without food, ie quaffable is the word often used.

Chill if it needs to be chilled. About an hour in the freezer does the trick. Reds: Let it breath if you can bear to wait if it needs to breathe (Take the cork out and let it stand for an hour or so). Older high quality reds should breathe I believe - but I can't afford to drink those. Don't think it makes much difference really with younger mass produced reds.

A corked wine is one where air has got into the bottle over a long period of time due to a poor fitting cork, and the wine tastes vinegary, musty, mouldy and dead. It should be returned to point of purchase. It will be replaced without question. I haven't had a corked bottle for years.

6) You.
If you like it then you like it. If you hate it then you hate it. Don't let anyone tell you different. This is where wine snobbery starts.

Snobbery is not about describing wine as cigar box, melon, cirus, flinty etc flavoured. This is an attempt to give you a feel for the taste of the stuff. Other useful words are sweet, acid, heavy, light and so on. Snobbery is when some prat describes a wine as something like "Useful".


And finally - just go for it. Buy the stuff, Drink it and enjoy it.
 
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very good explanation EffBee! i idont like south african wines either. nor do i like the grapes, they tend to be hard, and bitter tasting compared to south american grapes, which are really nice
 
As some of you will know, I'm a whisky man but I do enjoy the odd bottle or two of plonk now and again. In my limited experience, price has very little to do with whether a wine is enjoyable or not. I've had many bottles of wine at £3.99 (occasionally even less) which have been perfectly palatable. Likewise I have had wine at over a tenner a bottle which I wouldn't use in a sauce, never mind drink. I tend to go for full bodied reds - I look at the label and see what it says and buy according to how flush I am - If I'm feeling wealthy, I'll buy a bottle around the £10 mark, if I'm a bit skint, I'll happily plump for a £3.99 bottle of red anti-freeze :p

Probably best to take advice from the guys who know what they're talking about but just be aware that even though a bottle of wine costs £15, it's no guarantee it'll be good.

Prime example (using whisky, since I know what I'm talking about). I bought two bottles of Royal Lochnagar from the Oddbins at the top of Union Street in Aberdeen (excellent selection of malts), one was a 12yo and the other was a 30yo. The 12yo cost £25 and the 30yo cost £83. The 12yo, to my taste, was the superior whisky, even though it cost less than a third of the price of the 30yo. It was fresh and had a well rounded flavour whereas the 30yo was over-matured and tasted almost bitter.
 
Ignore anyone who says 'go buy this wine'

Go buy a wine book and read up on the basics about tasting and the different types out there. There's no need to go into great detail, but you should have some intellectual concept of the differences between, for example, a shiraz and a cabernet sauvignon. Pick out a selection of six bottles or so with the help of an independent wine retailer (supermarket 'commodity' wines have their place, but I believe you'll be better off starting out a little more adventurously).

Then get a few friends round one night (who are looking for more than a **** up) and work your way through the bottles, making notes as you go along. Try to identify the three most prominent flavours, in order, and compare your findings with each other and with the blurb on the bottle.
 
Bigstan said:
Prime example (using whisky, since I know what I'm talking about). I bought two bottles of Royal Lochnagar from the Oddbins at the top of Union Street in Aberdeen (excellent selection of malts), one was a 12yo and the other was a 30yo. The 12yo cost £25 and the 30yo cost £83. The 12yo, to my taste, was the superior whisky, even though it cost less than a third of the price of the 30yo. It was fresh and had a well rounded flavour whereas the 30yo was over-matured and tasted almost bitter.
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Specifically for whisky, an 'older' bottle does not make it better, it merely makes it taste more like the cask.
 
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