Shopping for wine can be an intimidating
experience. How to find the right bottle
for you? Let’s start with three questions…
First:
why are you buying the wine? To serve with dinner that evening? To sip by itself? As a gift for a friend? Different wines serve different purposes, so
it’s very helpful to know what that purpose will be.
Second: how much are you willing to spend? When I worked in the wine
trade, I never, ever looked down on anyone who was seeking good value for their
money – but each customer has his or her own definition of value. So will you.
And you may find that your definition of
value changes if wine moves from an occasional pleasant indulgence to a hobby
(or, indeed, an obsession!). The real
criteria we use in the wine trade is QPR (Quality/Price Ratio); look for the
best bottle of wine you can find at a reasonable price.
Third:
what kind of wines have you liked in the past – and how adventurous do you care
to be when trying new wines? The whole point of The Vinous Voyager is to
encourage you to try something that’s a bit outside of your comfort zone, but
there are moments when we want to stick to the tried-and-true – and other times
when you’re eager to taste something off the beaten path.
If you can answer these three questions,
then you can help your local wine merchant identify wines that may be of
interest -- assuming, of course, that your local wine merchant has a clue. Some do – but, regrettably, many do not.
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| See below for my advice concerning shelf-talkers |
So what do I do if the people who work at my local
wine store are 99% Clue-Free?
Let’s start by examining possible
answers to the questions we’ve posed above…
Why are you buying the wine?
If
you’re buying wine to serve with dinner, there are a few easy principles to
remember…
First, the old rule about red wine with dark meats, white wines with chicken
and fish, isn’t entirely inaccurate.
There are exceptions, of course (Pinot Noir, a red, can be a great partner
for chicken prepared in a savory style, vegetarian dishes, or grilled
freshwater Salmon) but you can’t go too far wrong by following conventional
wisdom on this point.
The second notion is that it’s usually a pretty good idea to drink
wine that’s produced from the same area that developed the cuisine you’ll be
having – for example, if you’re having pasta, an Italian wine will usually
be a good match. Having seafood caught
off the coast of New York? Try one of
the excellent Chardonnays or Sauvignon Blancs vinified on the North Fork of
Long Island. Buy local, drink local is a
good rule of thumb.
If
you’re serving spicy Asian foods, you’ll probably never miss if you serve a dry
Riesling. Riesling is the ultimate
food wine for almost any dish that calls for a white, and this is especially
true if it’s on the spicy side. if
you’re serving Thai, Malay, Indonesian or Chinese cuisine, Riesling will be
your best friend. It also works very
well with Indian food – although in that case, the superb Austrian grape Grüner
Veltliner may give it a run for its money.
When in doubt with spicy food, go to Riesling first. Australian or New Zealand Rieslings that
aren’t marked “late harvest,” Riesling from Alsace-Lorraine, or German
Rieslings marked “Trocken” will all come in handy.
Serving
burgers? Try
Zinfandels, Aussie Shiraz or value-priced Cabernets. Steak
or lamb? Bordeaux (preferably), or serious
Cabernets from Chile, Australia or Argentina – or California, if price is no
object. Alternatively: Argentinian
Malbecs, or Chilean Carmeneres.
For
shellfish, Chardonnays are my go-to wines,
especially St. Verans, Mâcon Villages or good-value wines from California,
Chile or Australia.
For
other varieties of seafood, Sauvignon Blanc is
often a good match, especially Sancerre, New Zealand, California or Chile.
For
Vegetarian dishes, go to Pinot Noir if you want a
red, Grüner Veltliner for a white.
If
you’re buying something that you’ll be drinking on its own, or as an aperitif
before dinner, my view is that lighter is better. Heavy wines (Cabernet, serious Syrah/Shiraz,
Malbec) really need food to show them at their best. Lately, I’ve begun to appreciate the almost
endless variety of excellent white wines the world has to offer, and so I
almost invariably go to a white before dinner, or while sitting in front of my (non-existent)
fireplace.
How much are you willing to spend?
There are still decent values at around
the $10.00 mark. (I’m always wary of
anything that sinks too far below $9.00, unless I know the producer.) In this range, look for wines from Columbia
Crest (Washington State), Concha y Toro’s Casillero del Diablo line (Chile) and
Miguel Torres (Spain). All these
wineries are, by and large, producers of good wines for a keen price.
That being said, you’ll seriously
increase the range of quality you’ll get if you’re willing to go to the $12.00
– 15.00 range. Sometimes, you’ll find great
value at this price point from producers who are making wines in areas that are
not yet fashionable, or who have not yet made a name for themselves.
And the quality you’ll get will expand
exponentially if you can see yourself spending $15.00 – 20.00. You’re likely to great excellent value in
this range from countries where the cost of labor is low (for example, Chile
and Argentina) or in Old World nations where winery owners have long ago paid
off their mortgage (some wineries in Italy and Spain fit into this
category). Check out some of the popular
wine periodicals for the best buys in this range.
Last but not least, once you go to $20.00
– 25.00, you’ll be able to sample wines from all over the planet that offer a
broad spectrum of what the wine world has to offer.
Shopping for value in places like
Bordeaux requires some self-education, but the results are more than worth the
effort. Here’s another place where the
best wine periodicals can be immensely helpful.
The Voyager will post some specific
recommendations for each of these price points in the future; stay tuned to
this channel! And note that most of the
wines reviewed by The Voyager fit into the range between $12.00 – $25.00, so be
sure to check out older posts for wines we love that won’t molest your bank
account too much.
For more than $25.00 – well, there are
many great wines that cost this much, or more.
There are also a lot of fairly average wines that sell for lofty
prices. Wine is one of those areas in
life where you don’t always get what you pay for. If you want to shell out a lot of money for a
bottle that’s really special, you need to (a) rely on shelf-talkers (see
below); (b) cultivate your own knowledge by consulting wine periodicals, (c) find a merchant with real knowledge of
the wine s/he stocks, or (d) take a lot of risks on wines that seem interesting
but may or may not live up to advance billing.
What kind of wines do you like –
and how adventurous are you?
I always stick to the tried and true
whenever I’m invited to a friend’s house for dinner.
(My pals all know me well enough to assume
that I’ll show up with a bottle or two of something good, and I’m vain enough
to value my reputation in such matters.)
Ditto with gifts, only more so; I would be very reluctant to buy a
bottle as a gift unless it was something I had tried myself, or came from a
vintner whose track record I knew to be very strong indeed. In the absence of personal experience, this
is another place where wine periodicals can be useful.
When I’m on my own, however, the most
important consideration is my mood. If
I’ve had a lousy day, I’ll want to pop the cork on something that I know – or
strongly suspect – will be satisfying.
If I’m having a run of good fortune, however, and find myself in a more
carefree state of mind, it may be the right time to experiment, and try to find
something new and interesting.
These days, of course, I’ve dedicated
myself to exploration – opening bottles that I might not otherwise have
sampled, so that you’ll have some guidance as what new delights may be on the
horizon. So far, I must say that the
voyage has been a revelation, with many happy results!
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| The Wine Advocate -- a reliable source of guidance |
Wine Critics
At any price point, wine critics can be
helpful. Many merchants will hang
“shelf-talkers,” printed summaries of reviews from wine critics, on the racks
where they display their wines. These
can be very informative – but make sure
that the shelf-talker is referring to the same vintage that’s being stocked. My one criticism of the practice of posting
shelf-talkers is that too many merchants leave them up for too long, so that in
some cases the review refers to a wine that has long since ceased to be on
their racks.
Of course, the advice on a shelf-talker is only worthwhile if the critic who write it knows what he or she is writing about, and if their taste matches yours. Here are my views on the names you'll see most often on shelf-talkers...
The
most prominent wine critics are Robert Parker (a/k/a RP, but sometimes
listed under his publication, The Wine Advocate, also known as WA);
The
Wine Spectator (an American publication, a/k/a WS); James Suckling (ex-critic for The Wine Spectator, now on his own, and
worth following); Antonio Galloni
(ex-critic for The Wine Advocate,
also now on his own, and also worth following); Burghound (an astute American critic specializing in Burgundy); and
James Halliday (an esteemed and
accurate critic of Australian wines).
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| The Wine Spectator is the 800-pound Gorilla, but size isn't a bad thing in this case: knowledgable critics and columnists provide sound advice |
You’ll also see shelf-talkers from The
Wine Enthusiast (WE) and Wine & Spirits; these are okay,
but I find the Enthusiast to be a
bit…enthusiastic. Ditto with Wine & Spirits. They are by no means always wrong, but based
on my experience, I tend to subtract 2-3 points from most of their
reviews. Wines that they really like, in the 92-95 point range,
are usually pretty good; typically, however, I think that wines getting 90
points from the Enthusiast or Wine & Spirits are not quite worth
that 9/10 rating.
I would say the same about Stephen
Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar (IWC) – only more so. When Tanzer likes a wine, it’s almost
invariably something I don’t especially enjoy.
This doesn’t mean Tanzer is wrong, or a bad critic – but it does mean
that his taste doesn’t usually match my own.
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| James Suckling -- ex-Wine Spectator, now on his own, and worth consulting |
The only way to determine which critics
correspond with your taste is to try the wines they recommend, and see if you
agree. Robert Parker is, by far, the
most influential wine critic in the world, and I often find myself in agreement
with him -- but you may find that the wines he recommends don’t match what
you’re looking for when you crack open a bottle. Trial and error is the only way to see whose
guidance you should seek when you peruse a publication or read shelf-talkers at
your local wine store. As I’ve said
previously on this blog, the same applies to my opinions; when you try the
wines I recommend (or pan), you’ll decide for yourself whether my tastes are
helpful when you purchase wine.
What happens if there are no shelf-talkers, and no
knowledgeable merchant?
In any endeavor, when you find yourself
on your own, life can feel difficult. In
the absence of any help in the wine store, you have to be guided by
curiosity. That curiosity will be
nurtured if you have a look at some of the wine publications that are
available.
We’ve already mentioned The
Wine Spectator. It’s the
800-pound gorilla as far as wine periodicals are concerned. The
Spectator certainly has the largest circulation of any wine magazine in the
United States. Their critics tend to
like California wines a lot. They also tend
to like expensive wines -- both from California and elsewhere – a lot. Still, their tasters know what they’re doing,
and they do include recommendations for value-oriented wines in every issue (“Smart
Buys” and “Best Values”), and these provide a very good place to start.
One periodical that you most likely
won’t see on the shelves of your local American bookstore is the English
publication Decanter. It bills
itself as “The world’s best wine magazine.”
For once, the hype is justified.
Decanter’s columnists and critics are among the best on the planet; you
will learn a great deal from reading their monthly musings, especially if
you’re seeking graceful wines that will go well with food. You’ll see articles and columns from Steven
Spurrier, Hugh Johnson, Stephen Brook, Margaret Rand, Rosemary George, John
Livingstone Learmouth and a battalion of other superb writers. Do yourself a favor and subscribe.
Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate is a very useful publication. Parker accepts no advertising; in theory, his
reviews are not biased (well, at least not biased by ad revenues). It’s a newsletter, not a glossy magazine;
there aren’t any lovely photos of gorgeous vineyards with attractive,
well-dressed winery-owning couples accompanied by their devoted dogs (staples
of most other wine periodicals). It’s
just a lengthy series of reviews. It
might seem a bit dry, but the reviews are typically worth perusing. The best thing is that Parker, and the
critics who work for him, have a nose for value that can steer you in the right
direction.
As mentioned above, The Wine Enthusiast and Wine
& Spirits are both decent magazines, although I think they tend to
be a trifle optimistic in their ratings.
Worth reading, but not essential in my view.
Last, but far from least, if you have
the slightest curiosity about fine wine, and if you’re going to invest in only one book, make it Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book. Hugh Johnson is an outstanding wine critic. Vastly experienced and hugely knowledgeable,
Johnson manages to be supremely erudite without a trace of pretension. He has enlisted the help of Margaret Rand,
another excellent wine writer, to edit recent editions, and they rely on a host
of experts from around the world to keep up with the latest developments in
different wine-growing regions. It’s published every year, and I usually buy it
every two or three years, just to stay current with what Johnson, Rand and
their colleagues have to say. The Pocket
Wine Book is published in a format that really does make it fairly easy to
carry around; it’s certainly simpler to keep this with you than to truck around
a stack of magazines. It’s the one wine
book I would take with me to a desert island.
(A desert island that had a good wine shop, of course…)
An absolutely crucial tip – purchasing by the case
Find out if your local wine store offers
a discount for wines purchased by the case, especially mixed cases (in other
words, a case of twelve different wines).
Buying mixed cases at a discount can expand the range of what you can
afford, and thus make it possible to sample wines from all over the world. One of my local stores here in Boulder,
Colorado offers a 20% discount for mixed cases purchased on Mondays. Guess where you can find me every other
Monday evening…
And there’s one more resource you can turn to…
I hope it goes without saying by now
that The Vinous Voyager will be a source of advice for those who wander into a
wine store without any prior knowledge.
Bring your smart phone or tablet with you, and tune in to the
suggestions we’ll offer to help you navigate the world of fine wine – including
older posts.
The Voyager’s final word of advice:
explore and learn what you like!
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