Choosing wine is the topic for this installment of our wine 101 guide...

Choosing wine from the thousands upon thousands of bottles available can be confusing. So, how do you go about making the right choice? Knowing generally what you like is, as with all purchases, the first thing to establish. Being offered the finest Cabernet Sauvignon is of little benefit if your preference is Zinfandel. Therefore, you need to try out the various different wine types (Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Nebbiolos, etc.) to see which are best suited to you.

On deciding which variety of wine you prefer, you'll have made your wine buying trip significantly more straight-forward. Go into your local wine shop, and walk around the section dedicated to the type of wine you decided upon. Look for the blurbs on the wine racks and read through them. Pay attention to the wine shops handwritten notes more so than any "winery notes" provided by the wine producer (as these tend to be no more than marketing material).

Ask an employee of the store to assist you if there's one available. Explain what kinds of wines you've tried in the past, and then what you're looking for. Give them details of the tastes and flavors that you like or dislike. The more you tell them the better their wine recommendations for you will be. Some will even offer free samples to you to help you make a decision.

Take down the details of any recommendations that you don't purchase, or of any other wines that take your interest. You can then research them on the internet when you get home or look out for them the next time youre looking through a wine menu at a restaurant.

Finally, keep in mind that there is no such thing as a universally perfect wine. What pleases you personally is all that you should be concerned with. No shop owner or wine reviewer will have the exact same taste in wine as you. There's no guarantee that you'll like a particular wine even if everyone else seems to love it. Likewise, you may like wines that are supposedly not up to standard.

Tagged with: •

Filed under: Sterling Silver Goblets

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!