The Official Patriot's Planet Guide to Wines Worth Drinking

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bideau said:
I doubt Chevss intended for this thread to go off the rails so quickly. :shake:

I'm not a wine drinker and know very little about how to pick out a decent wine when I need it. We had a good friend who was very savvy with wine who once told us that at the very least, make sure the alcohol content is at least 12.5%. So that's what we do.

Any hints on what to look for other than alcohol content and fancy labels?
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Late to this party, been a weird two weeks and I had minimal internet access.

Anyway, for many wines, learning how to read the label isn't that difficult.

The primary trick is to learn how to know how narrow the patch of earth the grapes in the bottle came from.

Generally speaking the smaller the patch, the better the quality.

This makes sense if you think about it, since the producers are going to keep the best quality grapes for the bottles that are more closely tied to their patch of ground.

Most wine producing countries have regulations regarding what they have to say on the label about where it's from.

The one I'm most familiar with are French wines.

Somewhere on the label there will be a statement "appellation controlle de X" where "X" is a geographical term.

If the appellation is a specific chateau, that means all the wine came from that chateau. If the appelation is France, they came from somewhere in France.

For other countries, it often identifies a specific river valley as the location.

It isn't too hard to do a Goggle search on your phone to see just how big any given geographical feature is to get an idea on how big or small it is.

Now, this simply tells you if it's the best quality from a given region, that doesn't necessarily say anything about how good it actually is.

Some regions simply produce better wine than others so the best quality from area X may match up to the third tier from region Y.

Price isn't always an important bit of data for evaluating the quality of any given wine.

Transportation costs play a significant role in the price you pay, and the cost to ship a bottle from France or California to Boston is about the same. The same isn't true if you're in California.

Shipping costs from Australia or Chile is about the same to either coast.

So the price you see at the store can be strongly influenced by those shipping costs and recognize that a more expensive wine may simply be more expensive due to shipping costs.

It's also important that you use the right shaped glass for the wine you're drinking and have it at the proper temperature.

They are shaped differently for a reason. The primary sense you use to "taste" a wine is actually your sense of smell, and the glass and temperature make a big difference on just what you do smell.

Champaign flutes are narrow to limit the surface area so it doesn't go flat as quickly.

Whites are wider than a champaign flute but narrower than reds.

Letting a red "breathe" isn't just posturing, it makes a big difference on the taste.

Simply opening the bottle doesn't really help that much because the surface area in the neck of the bottle is so small. I generally pour one glass full enough to get the level down to the main diameter of the bottle.

Let it sit for 45 minutes to an hour.

If you're pinched for time, put it in a decanter and swirl the decanter a bit to get some air into the wine.

This isn't preferred, but I've done it if I have to.
 
Few reds I've had recently worth mentioning:

Valserrano Reserva 2008 which I had with steak. It had a surprisingly long finish but was always pleasant to me. I believe I paid around $19 for the bottle.

A Coastline Zinfandel (Paso Robles) which was easy to drink but not very complex or interesting. Good for a cheap bottle to crack open on non-occasions in my opinion. Cost was <$10 but think it was on sale from slightly more (maybe $12?)

Was also given the opportunity to drink a 1999 Chateau d'Yquem which was fantastic, but probably overpriced given how much good wine you can get in the dessert wine space for much much less.
 
How well do you know the French's wine stars? Take our quiz on Burgundy and Bordeaux! There's also a little Q&A to help you determine what kinds of wines you'd like most.

https://www.winerist.com/blog/entry/test-your-wine-knowledge-bordeaux-vs-burgundy-quiz

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Pretty much any Zinfandel from the Shenandoah Valley in CA is teh awesome.
 
From the WineEnthusiast. Top 100 best buys on the market today.

http://www.winemag.com/toplists/top-100-best-buys/




 
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