Ive been discovering wine these last few years. I wonder which of these Dopers enjoy and I thought I’d play around with the poll feature. If I did this correctly, you can pick six.
By the way my big discovery was Cinsault. Long story but I got some at a discount store and I’ve later learned that it’s often used in blends for smoothness, not bottled as a standalone variety. I’m saving it for super special occasions.
Well crap, it voted after only one choice, Riesling. Oh well…
OP, favorite wine for what? By itself? To impress friends? To go great with X food? To celebrate an occasion? Lots of choices.
If you like Cinsault, you might like Pinotage, a cross between Cinsault and Pinot Noir. What about the Cinsaults you’ve had, pleased you? The flavors, body, aroma?
I was only able to select one - Pinot Noir, but I only wanted to also select Malbec from the offerings of the poll. I’d also select Muscat except I’ve never had a white variety. I like the similar-tasting but unrelated fox wines of America - muscadine, niagara, and concord, which share an earthy foxy taste with Muscat. But my favorite is old Gamay varietals which are sort of in between low table wines and high pinot noir Burgundy. Crus Beaujolais probably fill out most of my top 10 in best vintage years ever.
I like Pinot Noir, but mainly when it’s very slightly oak tinged like my favorite Burgundies. It is also occasionally taken up by California Pinots, but they sometimes use native US oaks which are too strong. I actually prefer Pinots with no oak to too much, even Californians.
There’s a bit of a backstory, but I ended up at a 99 cents only store. Mrs. L doesn’t like them…she thinks that they falsely advertise. $1.99 or 2.99 is not .99 etc.
Found a bottle of Cinsault and damn that’s good red. Smooth, not too sweet nor too dry. Went back and got all we could buy. No barcodes but the mgr came up and signed off. Happy to buy it.
Sorry it’s giving one choice. Worth trying in a new thread?
ETA: Sounds like we may have some true vinophiles…someone other than me might design a better poll?
A month or so ago I went to the Epcot flower and garden – err, food and wine fest – and drank around the world as usual. Then I got to one of the last buildings, which had several offerings in it. One of which was a Pinot Noir from California for $12, and at an Epcot wine festival, this usually means only a 3+ oz sample. So I bought it, having been loosened up by the previous sales and thinking some California noirs are pretty good. So I went up to the stand and they only pour me TWO ounces of the pinot noir for $12! But it was in the top 10 best wines I’ve ever had. Only the very slightest hint of oak came through and was otherwise the purest grape taste. I had two more of those “samples”, paying $36 for a normal glass of wine. I’d totally do it again. It was from Kurt Russell vineyards but I don’t remember the year or label.
Mrs. L is partial to the J Lohr Cab from 2016. I’m learning that years can mean a lot. WRT the wine…that 2016 was a huge fave and the rest are meh. Bizarre too because cabs usually don’t impress her.
Marked Merlot and was going to mark cabernet sauvignon and Zinfandel as well.
Just bought 12 bottles of primitivo, which is the European name of Zinfandel. However, in the U.S. it’s often sold as white version, that is, white zinfandel. Most people here have never heard of zinfandel and only know primitivo. And people on both sides of the pond are unaware that the other side has a different name for the same thing.
Was only able to vote once, so my vote came in for Cabernet Sauvignon, but if I only had one choice, I would probably change to Riesling (dry).Our local supermarket currently has a wonderful Côtes De Gascogne at the moment, which is a mix of Colombard and Sauvignon Blanc.
Really dislike Pinot Grigio (headache wine), Chardonnay (buttery taste) and am not overly fond of any rosè wines.
But as Mrs. L points out, buying things from such retailers is risky. If they store it at temps that are too warm it can ruin it.
Also, I found an app for your phone—Vivino. Scan the label of a wine and it pulls up a profile. What ratings do users give, what’s an average cost for a bottle, etc.? I won’t say I 100% agree with the reviews but it’s a tool.
I can’t get multi-selection to work, so the results I’m sure are quite skewed.
I drink mostly reds, so Malbec, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Noir are among my favorites. But we tend to seek out northern Italian reds like Montepulciano or Teroldego because we’ve spent time there and love the flavor with a meal. Our local wine shop often has very wonderful but inexpensive bottles that we keep as our weeknight wines. And my sister’s winery just started making a wonderful Teroldego that we can’t get enough of.
I also like Prosecco and Champagne (not on your list) and have started drinking more Rose (which isn’t really a varietal like the others on the list) and Pinot Grigio in hot weather.
I don’t know about ruining the wine, but bad storage for long enough is going to mute the aromas you want, and likely inhibit the chance of significant bottle bouquet developing. You’re not aging it, and it clearly tastes good to you now, so it doesn’t matter very much. Buying a bottle in 1996 of, e.g., 1983 Chateau Beaucastel, and expecting it to taste like well-stored Beaucastel OTOH… Oh well, we all have to learn sometime.
Great score for you guys! I love finding diamonds in the rough.
Besides the Pinotage I recommended trying before, you might like other Rhone varieties from California with similar flavor profiles, like Mourvedre (might be earthier than the Cinsault), or Grenache (should be jammier and fruitier than it). I dunno about their claims of Cinsault being the oldest vines in the Lodi area, but I’d believe that if they were Petite Sirah (much darker, probably more tannic than the Cinsault) or Zinfandel (higher alcohol, richer, thicker, might be spicier)
Cellartracker.com is what I use when shopping. Do not take the contributors’ tasting notes as gospel. Rather, read them to get a general idea of the style of that particular wine. Cellartracker also helpfully has a button to load the winesearcher.com page for that wine, so you can get an idea of how good a bargain you’re seeing.
It looks like there is a floating poll tag in the OP which is presumably why the multi-choice isn’t working - maybe a mod can fix it?
Luckily I chose my #1 favourite first, Sauvignon Blanc - ideally Marlborough, NZ, but French and Chilean are also good. Having said that, I generally drink reds such as Malbec, Cab Sauv, Montepulciano, and Chianti. Also quite enjoy Merlot and Shiraz if I want something fruity. My wife’s favourite is White Zinfandel Rose, which I am also happy to drink on occasion, as I have a sweet tooth. Back on whites, I’m also partial to Viognier - I like the peach notes. Not so keen on dry wines.
My go-to is a nice oaky Chardonnay with balanced notes of citrus and butter. But who am I kidding… in reality, I’ll drink anything labeled “wine”. In the before days, if I ordered wine in a restaurant, I’d choose the wine one step above the cheapest selection, so I don’t seem like a total cheapskate. I think restaurants know that, and make the actual cheapest wine the second-cheapest choice on the menu to up their margin.
Not a big fan of reds, but I do enjoy a Pinot Noir every once in awhile.
Your first sentence doesn’t jibe with your last. Sauvignon blanc table wines (so nothing like Sauternes) are fermented dry. I.e., no residual sugar (RS) above the threshold of taste. Which is, IIRC, 1.5 g of sugar per liter. Some likely do have “the Kendall-Jackson secret”, which is a teensy bit of RS above that threshold. The sugar contributes to a richer mouthfeel for most people. But those wines are still “dry”, technically.
Which leads me to ask: when you call a wine, “dry,” what characteristic of it are you describing?
Viognier can be lovely. Very diverse styles for it, too. Anything from 12-13% alcohol, kind of steely, mineral tasting, with some flowers, to 15% plus, ripe, fleshy, like biting into cantaloupe, but with flowers on it. Condrieu is a French appellation that is planted with Viognier. Unfortunately, it’s small, yields can be low, and it can be popular. So it isn’t cheap. But producers like Yves Cuilleron, Guigal, and Stephane Ogier make beautiful dry, off-day, and piercingly sweet versions, well worth your time. And damn it, your money too, as ridiculous as some of them can cost.
I like a lot of different reds, mostly from Spain, Italy, or even Washington state
However, I was planning on using one of my six votes on “other” for sparkling.
I bought a bottle of this to drink on election night, but we didn’t feel good enough about the election to open it. We had it Wednesday (11/18/2020), and I’d say it’s my new favorite wine.
My favorite wine is Reisling, followed by a few other other white wines, like Pinot Gris, but the first of my six was Muscat, so that’s what went into your poll. Sorry.
I like Reisling with a meal, or if I must have a red, Malbec. I like Muscat or Prosecco as a dessert wine.
Interesting, thank you. As is already obvious, I am no expert, I just (think I) know what I like. To try to explain what I mean by ‘dry’ - my typical impression of something like a(n unoaked) Chardonnay is that they are ‘dry’, by which I mean I find it hard to detect meaningful flavours. Whereas with a Marlborough Sauv Blanc I can definitely get the typical gooseberry and melon notes, plus it feels ‘bigger’ to me in the mouth. I know it is still classed as a dry white but I would say more medium-dry. In general I would say I find Chilean Sauv Blanc a bit ‘more dry’ on this basis, and French generally a little more so again. Is there a better/more accurate way to describe this?
Similarly, I would equate ‘dryness’ in red wines with ‘less fruity’, generally speaking.
This stopped me from making the list as long as I would like—I think 20 must be the limit. I deleted a couple, tried submitting, deleted, tried submitting…
I think you could make separate threads “Favorite Reds,” “Favorite Whites,” etc. How about countries of origin? Or best places to buy? Here’s one I enjoy…
Some trivia…
If I asked you to name the largest retailer of wine in the United States, would your first guess be Costco, the big box store we often associate with bulk toilet paper, electronics and terrible pizza? We don’t allow alcohol sales in grocery stores here in Canada, so when I read this week that Costco sells more than a billion dollars in wine every year—more than anyone else in the country—I was shocked.
