Finding Your Own Inimitable Style: How To Drink Wine, Buy Wine & Boost Your Coolness Quotient
Assuming you’ve sipped through some portion of the recommended wines, you have, no doubt, discovered that certain of them appeal to you more than others. No one likes everything, nor should they. Our palates are as individual as our personalities. You may have found Bordeaux bewildering, Rieslings too racy, Syrahs simply not to your taste. Yet Burgundies beguile, Cavas caress, and Zinfandel make you zmile. As they say, there’s no accounting for taste. And there’s no need to excuse your preferences.
In fact, a tried and true approach to working your way into the wine world is to openly declare your preferences, especially if there’s some reasoning or an interesting anecdote or two in support. The reality is that wine people appreciate an independent thinker as long as he or she is more than a strident dullard promoting a singular perspective.
In other words, if you bring, order, or show up with a bottle of Côt (Malbec) from Cahors (a minor region of France) and just explain that you prefer the Old World qualities of it, the leather and tannins and minerality, to the lush fruity, juiciness of Argentine Malbecs, you will be accorded a measure of respect. You may get no agreement, though everyone will be anxious to try what you’ve brought, but you’ll definitely be welcome in the group.
Or should you profess an affection for Barbaresco because it’s a bit more approachable than a traditional Barolo, or for a Santorini Assyrtiko because the thought of its origin in ancient Greece, among the waters known to and sailed upon by Odysseus, intrigues you, you’re on the right path.
A tidbit of knowledge—whether regarding the tannic Old World character of Côt relative to the inky juiciness of Argentinean Malbec, the openness and approachability of Barbaresco versus Barolo (though in truth, tasted blind and side by side, most wine geeks couldn’t tell the difference anyway), or the classical allusions of wines from the Greek islands—may be the sole morsel of wine esoterica in your eno-toolbox, but if it’s interesting and true, it’s still interesting and true. And it will have currency with wine people. As you absorb other such nuggets, add them to your arsenal. This is how any knowledge base is built. With time, you’ll gain a broader picture of the wine world in general and of your own likes and dislikes, with stories and anecdotes to back them up.
Educating Your Palate
The only caveat—and it’s an important one—is to try high-quality wines. A second-rate Merlot or Chenin Blanc is second rate and seldom conveys the true measure of a variety. Don’t be drawn to the cheapest bottle in the store. Look instead for one more highly recommended, and most likely more expensive, though it needn’t be by much. This doesn’t mean drink yourself to penury; it means inform your palate with high-quality wines. Low-cost wines are not the product of top-notch fruit; typically they make use of younger grapes or those from a less desirable vineyard site or from a “commercial” winery more concerned with quantity than quality. Only by tasting the good stuff will you experience the typicity, the classic nuances and characteristics of a variety, allowing you the opportunity to honestly and accurately assess your preferences.
All of which directs you to the wines you most enjoy, the ones you’ll want to have at home. (Of course, this should never stop you from trying unfamiliar wines or varietals. True enthusiasts always have a selection of oddball bottles they’ve picked up simply out of curiosity.)
But with these other now-familiar new favorites in your life, it’s quite easy to inquire of your main squeeze, “Baby, would you like a glass of so-and-so? It comes from a little vineyard in Lodi, about an hour from Lake Tahoe.”
Wow. Not bad. Nice start to a promising evening.
Or say a couple of brew buddies show up. “Hey, dudes, lemme turn your suds-soaked palates on to something really good,” you say. Squints and cocked heads, a few mumbles re: the new big shot. “Just try this.” You pour everyone a glass of something terrific that you’d never heard of three months before. “Tell me that’s not intensely delicious.”
Raised eyebrows and nods of agreement from the brew crew now. Coolness quotient definitely on the rise.
Project yourself into similar scenes of enjoyment and sharing—with the in-laws, your siblings, that hot neighbor down the hall, even your boss! Don’t pretend to know what you don’t; in fact, if asked about something relating to wine that you don’t know, just admit it. But don’t hold back on what you do know, either. If you love a certain wine, say so; if you’ve heard or read an unusual tidbit about a particular region or winery, share it; let people know that you’re learning about wine, that you really enjoy it. Interest, exploration, and passion—all very cool.
Wine Shopping
Of course, you will also start frequenting the aisles of a (hopefully) good wine shop/liquor store, maybe the same place where you already pick up your beer. Typical store layouts arrange wine either by country or by varietal. A few try categorizing by general style—e.g., light and fruity or rich and full-bodied—which might be helpful for someone who’s never bought a bottle of wine or knows nothing about the subject, but that’s a category you’re no longer part of.
Even the “by varietal” approach has serious drawbacks. Where do you find blends, for example, or unusual varieties the store has only one or two bottlings of? Or how do you find a Bordeaux Superior in a long line of alphabetized Cabernet Sauvignons or an equally extensive rack of Merlots if you don’t have a specific producer or chateau name?
So, in most cases it’s “by country,” which makes sense because that’s how most people learn about wine: by country and by region. In any case, feel free to wander the aisles, to get a sense of the breadth and depth of the wines available. If something looks interesting, pick it up and read the labels, front and back. Some will tell you next to nothing, others are a mini-education in the wine you’re holding.
You’ll quickly discover which stores carry the wines or wine styles you prefer and which are most reasonable as far as price is concerned. Some wine shops just have a better vibe than others. Maybe it’s the shelving or the selection or the overall atmosphere created by the folks who work there.
And when you get the inevitable “Can I help you find something?” go for it. Give the clerk a chance to be a valuable resource. Certainly not all wine merchants will be, but the good ones are worth knowing and utilizing. Some know far less than you do; others have studied wine with passion for years and can be of tremendous help. After all, there’s nothing wrong with saying to your friends or family, “My wine guy down at such-and-such a store pointed me to this outstanding Naoussa. What do you say we try it with these lamb burgers?” Kind of impressive, actually.
As a beer buyer, you know that most domestic brews carry a “best by” or “consume by” date on their labels to save you from going home with a funky monkey in your bag. Theoretically, the higher the alcoholic strength and the more hops in a beer, the longer they should maintain their freshness. But that lovely hoppiness that attracted you to a particular brew in the first place fades with time; quality-conscious brewers want you to drink those hop monsters now, today, as soon as possible, while the volatile hop aromas are still at full strength. Despite their history of long distance travel (high alcohol and heavily hopped to prevent spoilage on long sea voyages from Britain to India) today’s IPAs are best enjoyed sooner rather than later. On the flip side of this barley-minted coin, doppelbocks, Imperial stouts, sour ales, and Belgian strong ales (alcohol levels of 6% to 7% and higher) can easily deal with a year or two of cool, climate-controlled aging.
Imports have their own challenges though. It’s a long way from a foreign brewery to your local retailer, with stops on the docks of a distant port, into the hold of a container ship, over the bounding main to the receiving port, in the back of a truck for transport to a local warehouse before eventual delivery to your favorite bottle shop—an arduous journey that may or may not see your much anticipated Scotch ale or Munich dunkel properly handled (i.e., in a temperature-controlled container during transport, a climate-controlled warehouse to keep it in good shape once it lands, and a refrigerated truck for delivery). Otherwise, the best approach is to shop at a clean, well-maintained store that moves a lot of product.
Never buy a lonely six-pack that’s been on the shelf so long it’s coated in dust. And should you get a bad or spoiled beer—or bottle of wine—from anywhere, return it and request your money back (again, unless you live in an area where refunding opened bottles is legally prohibited). No reputable operation would refuse to stand behind its inventory. Of course, all bets are off if your beer comes home in a growler, in which case you need to drain that sucker within a couple of days for max freshness and enjoyment.
But when it comes to wine shopping “best by” dates aren’t part of the equation. In fact, that lonely old, dust-covered bottle may be exactly what you are looking for. (An exception is any light-bodied, unoaked white wine, most of which are best consumed within a year or two of vintage. Avoid that six year old Pinot Grigio in the sale bin. Its best days have long ago come and gone.)
Critical elements in a wine shop are sun, temperature and position of the bottles. If you stroll into a shop and see the afternoon sun beating down on the end rack of wine, you may as well assume those bottles are ruined. Heat is not wine’s friend, which is the reason that good wine shops keep the thermostat down. A cool shop says someone knows what they’re doing and cares about the condition of their product. Position is also important; wine bottles, whenever possible, should be stored on their sides. This keeps the wine in contact with the cork and prevents the cork from drying out and letting air leak into the bottle. In a store with rapid turnover of inventory this may be less crucial, but a ten year old bottle of Barolo standing upright in dry air on a top shelf should give you pause.
Tasting Groups
Beyond shopping and enjoying your spoils with a few close friends, you might want to join, or start, a wine-tasting group. This can be completely informal, just a few fellow wine lovers who share an interest in increasing their knowledge of the grape. Everyone brings a bottle, maybe of the same variety but from different regions or vintages or producers, to contrast, compare and rank. Or maybe different varieties but from the same country. Or have someone provide a particular food and the others in the group all have to bring a wine to match.
There’s no limit as to what can be done. All the way up to very formal tastings where no food is allowed (all those lovely food aromas make it difficult to assess the wine), where perfume and aftershave is unequivocally unwelcome, for the same reason, where scores are kept and compared, dissected and discussed, and where the tasting is usually blind (and the attitudes sometimes follow).
But however you do it, make sure it’s a good time. A tasting for beer-drinking friends is likely to be quite different from one for your new wine geeks-in-arms. Try holding a few tastings of different kinds and see which you enjoy the most. Get your beer drinking friends involved in some wine tasting and your wine drinking friends into beer tasting. There’s no right or wrong, no absolutes. If you want to get the girlfriends or the guys together for a summertime tasting of fifteen rosés, do it.
One final tip regarding tastings and wine get-togethers: it almost always makes sense to invite a true knowledgeable, experienced wine drinker (one without the overbearing wine “guru” personality) to such events. These types can answer many of the questions your other guests might have, you’ll probably learn a thing or two from observing and talking with them, and best of all, they like to bring great wine to these soirees. Indeed, they frequently pull hard-to-find gems from their own cellars to share with whoever’s present. Real wine people are generous. Spend some time with them and it’s practically guaranteed you’ll have the opportunity to taste wines you could otherwise never find or afford. True wine lovers take great pleasure in sharing the best of what they have.
