I never had much of a taste for beer, but I am starting to develop a taste for wine. (I’ve heard that people should be divided into two groups : the grain or the grape.)
My current favorite is Sutter Home Chardonnay. I was going to pick up the latest Bougelais Nouveau, but our local wine steward told me that it’s probably one of the worst wines sold. Because of it’s popularity, it’s basically just bottled and shipped without the opportunity to age. The better wine is from the same vineyard, the Bougelais Villages, which I currently have a bottle waiting for New Years Eve.
The “name” wines seem to be bad as well. Turning Leaf just make me wince. But we do have a local winery, the Sakonnet vineyards which puts out a good red which they call “Eye of the Storm.”
Anybody else have any other recommendations or comments?
I’m partial to the Jacob’s Creek reds that come from the Barossa Valley in South Australia. Given that it’s Australia’s number one wine export, you should be able to find a bottle somewhere near you.
That said, Jacob’s Creek is not an overly expensive brand in Australia, hence it’s not exactly top shelf. My advice is to get half a dozen, and put them away until they are at least five years old. Then you should be able to enjoy a nice mellow shiraz or similar.
Yup, and I’m in exactly the same position as you. I don’t like beer, and I’m just starting to appreciate wine.
My current fav. is a German Rhisling; there’re apparently (at least) three types of Rhislings, I like the (horrible misspelling coming up) Spatseleise (pronounced Spahtz Lace) from a company called Schmitt Sonn. (It’s in fairly distintive cobalt-blue bottles, so it’s easy to spot.)
It’s very light and fruity tasting, and I found it “easily accessible”, if you’ll excuse the wine-snob expression. It’s really good with cheese, fish and poultry (although I’ve had it with steak and it’s still pretty good). It’s got a very refreshing taste.
Fenris
(who keeps wanting to use phrases like “Piquant, yet impertinent”)
When I go for wine, I want good taste and low price. I like Concho y Toro (great merlot and delicious Caubernet Sauvignon.) I also like Talus White Zinfindel, and several of the Robert Mondavi Coastal products. These should all be around ten bucks a bottle or less. There was also a brand (Trakea?) from Yugoslavia. It is some of the finest wine around, IMHO, but very hard to find, due to the fighting in that country. I cannot remember the exact spelling, but it has a gold coin on the label with a roman/greek style face on it. I used to be able to get it in Washington D.C. all the time. It was around 8 bucks a bottle, but very fine wine.
Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine, when ya gonna let me get sober…leave me alone, let me go home, let me go home and start over
This won’t directly help, but,
Work reasonably towards developing your own taste.
Red wine: red meats. White wine: fish, chicken…hogwash!
There was once a notable, but not notably specified vinyard that offered through mail-order a labeled, Adequate Red table wine… supremely tasty, and thrifty to boot.
If you become too involved with the specifics of what others promote, you will need an income to follow, in short order.
When and if time allows, set up your own blind taste test with a range of acceptably priced wines. Often, the ‘snobs’ can be hoisted by their own petards with humorous results. Not to suggest this, but there can be a time and place for many things.
Yeah, you know the stuff. The kind that’s got a little tap on the side of the box.
If you want to get real technical & stuff, it’s called white grenache. My personal favorite is Gallo white grenache, and it does come in a bottle (with a cork, even! Ooooh!). You can usually get it at your local drugstore, two for $7.00. Good, cheap holiday entertainment.
Hey, Euty, check and see if there are any wine tastings around. A local wine store offers some here, and our Parks Dept. offers wine classes, too. (Yes, Parks: these people understand “leisure activities”!)
They’re good deals, and lots of fun. With the exception of a few snot wannabes, the people were a blast. And it’s a great way to sample a lot of wines to find out what you like and what you don’t w/o shelling out megabucks.
Jacob’s Creek is good, but do try another Aussie winery: MacGuigan. Their shiraz is great. For the price, can’t be beat! There are a bunch of good CA/OR wineries, too. Stonehedge and Hacienda come to mind at the moment. All these sell decent wines for $8-$12 per bottle.
FWIW, I prefer wine dry, but smooth (and red over white). The tannic “burr” doesn’t appeal. I’ve had better luck w/ merlot, beaujolais and shiraz over the ubiquitous cabernets.
Interesting tidbit from wine class: good wine (taken in moderation, of course) honestly doesn’t produce hangovers like cheap jug wines. Seems there’s a lucrative medical demand for high-grade natural alcohol. The mass producers remove the natural alcohol from huge lots of inexpensive wine to sell separately, then “re-spike” what’s left to put into jug sales. The additives and conglomeration are what produce the pounding hangovers.
My favorite flavor for the past couple of years has been an Australian label called Rosemount - it’s a Traminer-Riesling blend that’t not as deadly sweet as Rieslings can be and also doesn’t make my tongue curl up on the edges like dry whites tend to do
Reds give me horrible headaches, so I tend to avoid them, but I do buy a bottle of Bequjolais-Villages Nouveau every year - if I suck enough carbs down before I open the bottle it doesn’t hurt so bad the next morning.
I “tasted” a bottle of Trimbach 95’ Gewurztraminer last night. Yum!
And this is coming from a through and through Guinness drinker.
I’ve also got two bottles of Spaetlese I’m waitnig on.
According to my (Australian) SO, Jacob’s Creek is regarded as very average (as DVous Means said) - you’d have it at home to drink, but would never dare take it to dinner at someone else’s. I’ve never really felt strongly either way about it - I’ve had much worse, certainly, and British wines aren’t much to shout about. My current personal favourite is another Australian, Brown Brothers’ cabernet sauvignon. Brown Brothers and Petaluma are two very good Australian vineyards. Mitchelton whites are quite good too.
The rules of thumb I always stick to are:
1 / Don’t drink anything that doesn’t list the grape variety (e.g. chardonnay, merlot etc).
2 / Blends are okay if they list all of the grape varieties and don’t contain more than about three types.
3 / Never trust anything that cost less than £4.50.
4 / If it cost more than £20, chances are that unless you’re a real connoisseur (and I’m not) you won’t notice the difference from a £10 bottle.
I like both beer and wine; I’ve brewed my own beer in the past, and recently Leigh-Anne and I have gotten more seriously interested in wine. Some of my recent favorites:
Pepperwood Grove Pinot Noir (1997). I like all the Pinot varieties, but Noir seems to really be my favorite. IIRC we picked it up for about $15.
DeBortoli Willowglen SE Australia Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon blend (1999). We had this at Xmas and it was terrific. Australian Shiraz grapes tend to be less “spicy” then the Syrah variety from France, and the blends take the edge off. Good stuff.
I have just started appreciating wine myself, although I have always liked a good Zinfandel, I basically just drank it because it was alcohol. Since moving to Sonoma County (Wine Country) and since I’ve been working at a winery for the past 2 months, I have come to really appreciate the different flavors in wine, as well as the feel in my mouth, the smell, etc. I even got a fancy schmansy Wine Guide from my sis for X-mas!
We really can’t afford $20 a pop for a bottle of wine, so my tastes are relatively of the lower priced, although in my opinion, good quality wines.
I need to start taking notes, because I try to buy a different brand almost every time I pick one up, and it gets hard to remember the flavors, and which ones I prefer. Here are a few off the top of my head:
Glen Ellen- Gamay Beaujolais- a nice light red, not bitter or tart, nice fruit flavor
Woodbridge (Robert Mondavi)- Sauv. Blanc
Kendall-Jackson- VR Chard.
I am really aquiring a taste for Merlot, Pinot Noir and Cab Sauv in the reds, and Pinot Grigio is a fun, light, fruity white.
Mmmmm I have a few bottles here waiting to be enjoyed tomorrow. I can’t wait.
Umm, perhaps not, Perse, that actually was a Holiday many moons ago, though my wiseass glands are still quite active. The oyster was the least of the problems—omitting the brilliant chemist shooting up in the bathroom, who, now, has thankfully just, after hell in between, become a brilliant chemist again…
