I only started drinking wine a few years ago and so far I haven’t found a red wine I like. with white wine I basically started out drinking the sweetest types and have now progressed to …slightly less sweet. :rolleyes:
when I am eating less sugar in food, I appreciate wine more and I then find sweet wines “too sweet”…all good. currently I very much like many Rieslings I have tried.
when it comes to red wine, I find they are too dry or way too sweet
what can you suggest?
A red wine I’ve found that many people new to wine like is Beaujolais. Look for something from Georges Duboeuf - they make decent wines that come in at around $10 and up. Jadot is also a decent brand, but I like Duboeuf a bit better.
They tend to be light and fruity, not overly sweet but not really dry either.
Another route to go might be to go with rosé, if you already like whites. Rosés tend to be a bit heavier than whites and are served cold, so that might be a good in-between for you. They are NOT all sweet like white zinfandel, a wine that single-handily gave rosés a bad name. My favorite rosé is Crios Rosé of Malbec, but there are many others worth trying.
Do you have a good wine store around? Like, a small place that specializes in wine? They oughta be able to help you as well. Also worth looking into are wine tastings - either free or with a small charge. You can taste a bunch of wines that way and find out what works for you.
In addition to what Athena suggests, I would also try a couple of Pinot Noirs. They generally produce lighter-bodied, less tannic (dry) wines than with other grape varieties. I would bet my Riedel stemware that your aversion is to the tannins present in full-bodied red wines like Cabernet, Merlot and the like. A good place to start for Pinot Noirs is anything decent from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Find a decent wine store near you and ask for suggestions.
Another thing to try with full-bodied reds is to drink them with food. As in, take a sip of the wine while the food is still in your mouth. Not only does this mitigate the tannins, it also can produce some remarkable flavor and aromatic contrasts when together. A classic pairing would be a California Cabernet Sauvignon and a nice rare steak.
I second the Pinot suggestion. It’s my go-to red wine, as it’s good with most foods and is also a nice sipping wine. My recommendation, though, would be a nice Pinot from the Santa Lucia highlands in CA. Safeway sells Talbot Kali Hart Pinot Noir for about $15, and it’s very good. If that’s too high, try the Kenwood Pinot-- I think it goes for about $10. Not from Santa Lucia Highlands, but still good.
thanks for the suggestions, I am making a list.
we have one liquor store in town but so far I haven’t found an employee there who knows about wine. the only other local option is Walmart. if I want to shop it’s often on the internet or I make the road trip to civilization.
reading the description of the Rose of Malbec made my mouth water!
Also red zinfandel. I know that they trend towards hugely ripe, alcoholic wines that can be fairly tannic, but they also generally have HUGE in your face black fruit flavors that are really enjoyable and can overwhelm the tannin presence.
Try Seghesio Sonoma County bottling. That’s my go-to, quasi-high-end red Zin. Its about $25/btl.
A good Rose is going to be a dry wine (due to the absence of sugar), but because the grape skins are left in contact with the fermenting juice for only as short time, they aren’t very tannic at all. Same reason why the wine is pink rather than full on red. Dry, well-made rose’s are the perfect picnic wine and are great with pizza. Actually, a good Beaujolais is great with pizza too.
Oh, and one other thing: it sounds like your access to non-grocery store wines may be limited. If you have to go the Wal-Mart route, an inexpensive, non-vintage line of wines that I actually like are the Barefoot wines. They sell them here in the Midwest at Kroger stores and a 750ml bottle is like $5.99. Their red zinfandel is pretty good, especially given the price.
If you’re open to Internet sales, I can highly recommend Wines 'til Sold Out. I watch the ratings, and I’ve rarely been disappointed with anything the Wine Advocate (Robert Parker’s guide) rates at 90 or above. If you watch, you can find bottles in $10-$12 range, mostly Spanish, that get that kind of rating.
Might not help the OP, as he’s looking for varietals/regions he likes, but I thought I’d put that out there for people who don’t live in areas with a great wine selection.
Try and find a Pinot Noir from Alsace: it’s heavenly with lamb.
The better French red wines seem to require longer to mature so beware a heavy red wine that’s from 2011, or even 2010. Buy a modest Claret and cook yourself a beef stew. Pour about 1/3 the bottle into the stew, and have the rest of the bottle as accompaniment to the stew when you eat it. Similarly, if you’re cooking a steak, use a glass of wine rather than water to make the gravy.
wait, I’m the OP and I’m a girl…checks
yes! I’ve got girly bits
I’ll check out the link but it’s like woot.com in that they’ll have stuff I don’t know I need until I see them. then I need them!
This is why I said to start with a more fruit-forward example from Oregon rather than plunge the OP into the beguiling (and often disappointing) world of Burgundy wines, although many California examples now exist that are a good place to start too.
Alsatian Pinot Noirs aren’t really popular with the Pinot fanboys as they trend towards austere and high acidity due to the climate there, and Alsace is WAY more well-known for its white wines, particularly Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio), Riesling and Gewurztraminer. But it never hurts to try. But I don’t think that Alsatian Pinot Noirs are a great place to start for an inexperienced wine drinker trying to find their sea legs in the world of red wine. No offense, Quartz.
Valpolicella - light, like a light Pinot Noir
Find a “meritage-type” domestic that is a blend of varietal grapes–especially one with Pinot, Cab and Merlot grapes.
A Beaujolais regional is the French equivalent to the above.
“fruit-forward”!! god, I love this place!
Pink moscato if you like sparkling.
Ub 40.
I have sort of the opposite problem to the OP. I’m a long time beer and whiskey drinker who started trying to appreciate wine a few years ago. Many of the wines initially suggested to me were just vastly too sweet to my tastes. I will basically drink cabernet, merlot and shiraz on a regular basis as they all have that sort of dry tannin-rich flavor that I seem to like. I know they aren’t the appropriate pairings a lot of time, but when I’ve tried to properly drink sweet wines with different things I have trouble. I know that some pinot noirs are considered sweet and some considered dry…but all of the pinot that I’ve had is still too sweet to my taste. There are some rieslings I’ve tried that, while technically sweet I suppose, I enjoyed.
Are Alsatian Pinot Noirs really a thing now? I know they exist because I’ve toured Alsace. But I can think of a grand total of one Alsatian Pinot Noir that I’ve seen in a US store in the past 5 or 6 years. Are they getting more popular somewhere?
Hell, I rarely see Alsatian WHITES in the stores around here, other than two or three big-named crappy varieties. And believe me, I try - Alsatians are my hands-down #1 favorite wines.
If that’s the case, look for old-world wines. French and Italian wines tend to be dryer and less fruity than new-world (US/Australia/etc) wines. A Bordeaux is likely to be very dry compared to an American Cabernet, for example.
And speaking of Bordeaux, the 2009 vintage hasn’t let me down yet, even though I stick to the cheap ones. I’ve found more than one 2009 Bordeaux in the $10-$15 range that has been great. Which is really weird and at the same time very welcome! (Bordeauxs are usually WAY more expensive).
I’m a fan of big, jammy, fruit forward wines - look for zinfandels and shirazes (although shiraz tends to be drier than you might like right now). There are some blends that are also excellent; I like Apothic and Menage a Trois. They’re very fruity without being sweet.