I was listening to NPR the other day (I think it was Fresh Air) and they were talking about how you can get good Chilean wine for under $10. I’ve rarely had wine and didn’t care for it much the times that I did, but I never gave it much of a chance, so this made me curious. I went to the state store and bought a $5 bottle of Fontera Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot.
I don’t care for it. I can drink it, but it’s not something I’d actually want to drink. It tastes good, but I don’t like the burning/bitter sensation it leaves on the roof of my mouth and in my throat. The aftertaste is bitter.
I have essentially the same complaint about beer, and I don’t like carbonated drinks. Never understood the appeal of coffee, either. I mostly drink milk, water, and a bit of fruit juice (mainly cider) and tea.
Is there any hope for me finding a wine that I like? What should I try?
If you’re not liking Cabs or Merlots, perhaps you would like a sweeter, lighter-bodied white. Something like a White Zinfandel (Beringer makes an affordable, perfectly acceptable one) or Moscato (try one from Barefoot) might be more your style.
The questions are:
Do you like them “full-bodied” or “light”
Do you like them “sweet” or “dry”
There is a possibility that you only like light through mid-bodied sweet through semi-sweet. Or maybe you don’t like any at all.
There are many types of wines available, at all different price ranges.
There was a time when the rule was “no decent bottle of wine sells for under $20.00”, but with the depreciation of the American dollar, plus the up and coming wineries in northern California, Australia, Chile (etc) perfectly drinkable wines are getting more and more affordable.
I’d recommend you try the sweeter, less full-bodied wines from:
Alice White
Barefoot
Yellow Tail
But, if in the end, it turns out you’re just not a fan of wine (it happens), move on to your favorite other beverage, be it Scotch or Diet Pepsi.
Well, you might want to “start” with sweeter wines - Reislings, even (I know, I know) white Zinfandel. A sweeter wine like that is kind of an “entry level” wine - you can go from there to other, more complex wines. There are a lot of very good, very educational free wine tastings out there - you can learn a lot about what all that “wine language” means by sampling a lot of different wines and finding out what you like, and what wine people CALL what you like. It’s an acquired taste, though, IMHO.
The first time I actually enjoyed red wine, I was eating a very rich prime rib. I liked the way the wine cleaned the greasy feeling out of my mouth (I later learned this quality is called “astringent” in wines) and then it made the next bite of meat taste extra specially yummy because it re-established the “first bite goodness”.
For a while I only liked wine when eating red meat… over time I started to enjoy in itself, but eating it with the “matching” food was a big first step. Have you ever tried a “wine pairing” meal?
But, at the end of the day, you don’t have to like everything. I can’t stand scotch - and I’ve supposedly had some excellent ones since may dad and husband both looove scotch and when my dad goes to Scotland he spares no expense on the “good stuff”; my dad & husband rhapsodize, but they all taste like dirt-flavored vodka to me. shrug
“My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.” - Bluto Blutarsky
Try the sweeter German Rhine wines, or maybe the lighter Italians. Or you can man up, grab a bottle of Old Vine Zinfandel, and discover what a real wine tastes like.
Try a nice bottle of Moscato d’Asti (light, mildly sparkling, sweet and slightly fruity) with some shortbread cookies – a marriage made in heaven! (I discovered this combo from a magazine interview with Quincy Jones, who suggested it as a great way to begin a romantic evening in front of the fireplace.)
Aaackk!!!..:eek:
You would be right about that!
While it’s perfectly okay to drink white wines with red meats and red wines with fish, it’s hard to go wrong if you don’t really know what you’re doing by sticking with red wines for hearty, red meats and/or tomatoey dishes, and white wines for poultry, fish (I’m especially fond of Pinot Grigio with fish and shellfish), and pastas with a white Alfredo type of sauce.
By and large, yes. However, there are rosé (pronounced ro-zay) wines that are pink. White Zinfandel, despite its name, is a rosé and is fairly light and sweet. And of course there is “pink” champagne, which is also a rosé.
Oh, yeah…another way to appreciate wine (champagne, anyway) is at breakfast. Champagne goes very well with scrambled eggs and other egg dishes like quiche (James Bond, IIRC, was fond of having Bollinger’s Pink Champagne with his scrambled eggs.)
Mimosas are another great way to enjoy champagne at breakfast. Just pick up an inexpensive bottle of champagne ($5 to $10), mix it 50/50 with a good orange juice, and you have a delightfully light and sparkling orange drink to go with your breakfast.
I disagree about starting sweet. I say start expensive. I thought I hated red wine until I had a glass from a $75 dollar bottle. It was like a symphony in my mouth. Changed the color of my world. It was so amazing that I spent the next several years sampling every red wine I could find, trying to find one as good again. In the process, I got used to red wine, and picked up a minor education along the way. Give yourself a treat. Find a really good wine store, and spend the most you can possibly spend a good bottle of Cabernet or Zinfandel. And then savor and *memorize *every mouthful. Then you’ll have a goal: find an affordable wine that reminds you of the expensive one.
ETA: any grocery store or liquor store with a halfway decent wine section will have Ridge and Ravenswood. They’re about the best of the widely available, mid-priced wines (IMHO): $30-$70.
You probably had the advantage of someone picking that wine because they knew it was good. There are plenty of expensive wines that, while very good, aren’t a good place for someone to start their appreciation of wine.
I always recommend that people start with something that is easy. Folie a Deux Menage a Trois is a $10 bottle that is an easy introduction to red wine. It’s not a great wine by any stretch, but it is good for getting people past the “I don’t like wine” stage because it simply tastes good. Then they usually want to try something else. I’m convinced that all it takes to make a wine lover is to find one bottle that they enjoy. Yours cost $75, but it can be done with a $10 bottle just as easily. I would bet that Yellow Tail has made wine drinkers out of a lot of people who never liked wine before and that stuff is very cheap.
While this has already been addressed, I will add that while almost all of your light/sweet wines are white, not all white wines are sweet. Some are actually quite dry, and without a taste for wine, you’re almost sure not to like them.
Alice Walker winery’s Lexia is very sweet (more so than white zin, even!), so you might like that. There’s also a little upstate New York winery called Bully Hill that makes a line of wines called Sweet Walter (comes in red or white) that are called that just because they are so sweet. Not something I’d want to drink with dinner, but pleasant as a dessert wine or with a nice sharp cheddar to balance the sweetness of the wine.
If there is an Aldi (grocery store) near you that sells wine, there’s good news on two fronts. One: their wine is cheaper than even the cheap wines in a liquor store, and two: their own proprietary brands of wine have graphs on the back that show how light/full-bodied and sweet/dry a wine is. That might give you a good starting point, plus if you don’t like it, you haven’t spent a bunch of money trying. I have a wine cabinet that holds 14 bottles of wine, and I stocked it completely at Aldi’s for a shade over $100.00.
You might want to try to find a local winetasting. My GF and I go to them occassionally. Usually they were set up by someone as a social function. It can give you an idea of different types of wines and what to look for in finding what you like.
While I like wine, I’m admitedly a moron about specific vintages. While some people write down stuff like “a playfull bouquette with just a hint of fruity blahblahblah”, I usually stick to :mad::(:dubious::):D, approximating whatever face I make after drinking it.
I tried some Moscato d’Asti and shortbread cookies. It was ok, at first, but not so great that I felt compelled to drink any more, so then I put it away. But then I felt compelled to try a bit more, so I got the bottle out again, and poured a small glass. Still not that great… I put it away. But after it was away, I really wanted some more… This went on for about two days, and now the bottle is empty and I really like it.
That’s great…about the Moscato d’Asti, that is, not your being an alcoholic.
However, it occurred to me in revisiting this thread that I may have made the same egregious mistake I made in advising a young woman at the liquor store on how to make a great martini – namely I forgot to mention that it should be chilled. :eek:
And so I’m thinking that perhaps, being a newcomer to wine, it didn’t occur to you to chill the moscato before drinking it. If so, you might try it that way and see if you don’t enjoy it even more.
And please accept my sincere apologies if my neglecting to tell you to chill it diminished your enjoyment of this delightful wine, but it sounds like you’re coming along well anyway.
P.S. - You may see bottles that just say Moscato, rather than Moscato d’Asti. It’s the d’Asti version that has the carbonation.
ETA: Oh, yeah…one other thing. If you’re going to let the bottle sit for a while either in the fridge or on a shelf, it would be a good idea to pick up a spring-loaded champagne stopper so as not to lose the carbonation. The one I use is here at top right.
Given the light carbonation of the d’Asti, that might be okay but I wouldn’t risk it. I usually buy 375 ml bottles, which are half-size and known as ‘splits’, and so the bottle usually gets emptied the night I open it, especially if someone else is helping me drink it. You might try it with the cork only and see if you detect a noticable loss of carbonation. If not, and you drink it soon enough, you’ll be okay. If it were me though, I’d get a champagne stopper so I could let it sit as long as I wanted with little risk of having it go flat. They are only $5 or so and you can easily find them at places like Bed, Bath & Beyond or just about any store with a good stock of kitchen utensils.
:D, approximating whatever face I make after drinking it.
