I'm a wine virgin. How to learn?
 

I live 13 miles from the Napa Valley but I dont know jack about wine. I feel like I'm missing something. How should I go about learning all about wines? I've never even gone wine tasting on my own so am completely clueless about the etiquette.

I have the connections...


KT

the Dummies Guide is not bad

my advice: work your way thru France & N. Italy

Go to a wine bar when it is not busy and tell the bartender exactly that. There are "classes" to take as well.

It sounds like a great problem to have! My cousin is in Sonoma. Wine is a big part of her life. You live in a great place to partake.

Have FUN.
Larry

Napa Valley is a bit snobby.

I would recommend joining a wine tasting club, or a wine bar. Sonoma is not bad.

Wine tasting club? Is that different from wine clubs?

We have some wine tasting clubs, wine "meetup groups" etc. A wine club is one that will send you wine in the mail. I don't recommend those because you don't know what you're buying yet.

Sometimes you can sign up at gourmet markets. Try Andronico's or look for a nice deli with a good, friendly wine salesperson. Or call a wine distributor and try to find a wine tasting. Usually these are around $10 for enough wine to knock you on your butt.

You may quickly find that what you may like may not cost not nearly as much as what you don't like. That's one of the beauty's of wine.

Find what you like, red, white, blends, dry or not. Lots of choices.

I always say, keep you nose down in the glass than up in the air. Meaning: Find what you like, not what you are supposed to like.

Enjoy. The choices are endless.

To learn about wine, you have to read & drink. Repeat 500 times. :D

The only reason to really make an effort to learn is so you can buy better wines that you like. Step 1: Learn the grape varieties. The same core vines are grown in many regions around the world - even though their character can be quite unique to each region. Red wines: Cabernet sauvignon. Merlot. Syrah. Pinot noir. Sangiovese. Nebbiolo. Tempranillo. Granache. Lesson 1: Research & discover the 'home' region for all of the above & sample several bottles of each. Take notes.

Come back for Lesson 2 when you have sobered up in a month or two.

Ian

If you are smart, you will not start down this road. It only ends poorly...;)

Whatever you do, don't start drinking expensive wine! Just start drinking a bunch of wines and see what you like and what you don't. Chatting in a tasting room is great.

But, once you get a taste for expensive wine, you've set yourself up to only ever drink expensive wine, you can't go back! It's like feeding your dog bacon for a month and then trying to give him a bowl of kibble. Not gonna happen.

I've had many great wines and beers. I guess I'm not so fussy as to deny myself a beer because I can't spend 2.50 a bottle at the store or 9 bucks at a fancy beer garden/restaurant.

If I want a beer and there's one in your fridge or mine, I'll drink it no matter what it is.

And that makes you appreciate what is really good and not necessarily expensive. Some people said awhile back on another thread that Two Buck Chuck was passable. Tell you what, it's the same stuff in the 5 liter box for 8.99. Now it's buck point 35 Chuck.

But some would tell you they would never drink wine out of a box or gallon jug. The rest of the wine world is much like that.

A great journey!

Learning about wine is, in a nutshell, learning about what you like. That's not easy, however, if only because of the incredible number of candidates to select from and the expense (pleasure?) of tasting enough wines to learn. In the Napa valley that can get rather expensive as the tasting rooms have pretty much learned how to pick your pocket. Many wineries are fabulous places to visit, some are just tourist traps. If they want you to drop $10 or $20 to taste, then your call. The other wine areas in California are more visitor-friendly but are also learning how to charge, unfortunately. In the Napa Valley, Grgich Hills, Teaderman, and Silver Oak are generally excellent. In the Sonoma Valley, Kachina, Silver Oak, and Rafanelli are generally excellent.

Good bottle shops are, imo, the best place to get oriented, but finding a good one is problematic. If you ask for a wine recommendation and hear "this got 93 points" or "Wine Speculator gave this wine..." or "Wine Advocate [Parker - ugh] gave this wine..." RUN AWAY! If, however, they ask you about your taste preferences and how/when you plan to drink the wine then you have a great candidate. Kermit Lynch in Berkeley and Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa are both excellent.

Start here: Quality is not necessarily proportional to cost.

There's a lot of consolidation going on in the wine biz, however, so expect things to change. My Spousal Unit is in the wine biz and is a wine judge so we get to taste a lot of wines. As you learn you will become much more discriminating - kind of like cars. Enjoy. It's lots of fun.

The best thing that happened to me wine-wise was working in a french restaurant as a waiter...several, in fact, with deep wines lists. College was good to me.

Forget the snob aspects and price: learn how to prepare and drink wine, with the proper glass, at the right temperature, etc. It does matter. Learning how to smell before you taste is important.

Find what you like at the mid-range. I do not like white wine at all, so I focused on red wine and am now fairly sophisticated in my tastes and preferences. That is my palate.

There are a lot of resources available, but it really comes down to what you like. Approach the wine-ex logically: don't buy into the blather about which side of the vineyard hill got the right sun with the right humidity with the proper bugs and soil.

That can come later when it might matter to you. Spend your time trying different wines at the mid range. Form a foundation for your palate and go from there. And, for goodness sake, enjoy!

FWIW, there are some amazing wines in a box.

best thing for me to learn about wine was to hang out with
beers, ag and JP.

55, we have great wine resources in our friends.

you coming to beers' sat chris? talk to him, working in the industry he will talk your ear off on it. he's all ghey that way....:D JP is in, pops & i, imagine if JP is in cliff is, and AG? never know til he showes, or not:cool: he's like rude dog rudy that way....

Buy 2 bottles of everything and send me one.

I will call you when it arrives and we will open and taste them, simultaneously. I will tell you what to look for smell and appearance, what flavors you should be looking to taste, what foods to pair it with and what temp it should be served at. I will even put together a spread sheet for you.

I figure 2 bottles a week and in about 3 years I can make you an expert:D

best advice yet

tho I think he meant to type "poor-housely"

And if you are truly interested & want to learn, buy this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1329773015.jpg

Hugh Johnson's The World Atlas of Wine. $31.50 on Amazon.

If there is one publication that could be called 'The Bible of Wine', this is it imho.

Ian

Find a nice vineyard that offers a nice selection of wine flights. We've got a nice regional vineyard that has a nice little restaurant with a nice assortment of tapas and long flights.

Well, I haven't found any amazing wines in a box, but I've been bold enough to buy some boxes. And it seems to vary because I once hit on a box of Cabernet sauvignon that was quite good.

I find if I blow some air into the filler nozzle and let it sit for a few days that it mellows out considerably. I learned that back in my college days when I would decant Carlo Rossi into a stoneware urn and let it sit a spell.

I've often wondered about doctoring inexpensive wine. I've done some really silly and off beat things just to see what would happen, like adding a bit of baking soda or salt. So far I have only ruined an already marginal glass of wine.

I keep thinking there is a secret for making a bulk wine taste more like a better wine and I keep thinking someone is doing this and fooling the hell out of a lot of people..

Yep. Lots of chemical manipulation in the States. See: Vinquiry

The wineries like to say their wines are made in the vineyard. What they don't say is that they're remade in the winery. Not so pure and natural as we'd like to think.

Start out with some MD 20-20, Thunderbird and Ripple. Work your way up.

Try Cru wines. Or Alexander Valley Vinyards (Pino or Cab). Or Benzinger Family Winery (Pinot Noir). Hard to go wrong with them.

Excellent advice. After the Mad Dog, Thunder Chicken & Ripple ( you left out Night Train BTW) one can graduate to Lancer's vin Rose, Carlo Rossi (mentioned in a post above) and Mateus.

Always better to establish the CHEAP supermarket stand bys first. That way you dont go crazy beating yourself up trying to get the good stuff.

Some of the "good stuff" is inexpensive. Some of the expensive stuff is, imo, undrinkable.

A friend who worked in a full service gas station late 60's had a woman customer that would buy him a six pack of beer if he would buy her some MD20/20. Good deal for both parties if that was your thing. One time he asked her if they called it MD20/20 because it improved her vision. She said "honey you drink enuff of this stuff you ain't got no vision".

Yes, I'll be there! When you guys start talking wine though, I'm lost. This time I'll pay attention and even partake on the stogies.

Lots of great advice here. Thanks all.

For a real crash course in wine, try making your own...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1329781412.jpg

does that say, "blueberry merlot"?

Two pieces of advice:

1. Wine is personal. It's what YOU like.
2. Palates change/evolve. What you liked years ago might be unpalatable today.

Otherwise, it's a fun journey, no different than any hobby. You can go as deep as you want to go depending on your time and budget. I started in college at UC Davis learning about wines and my hobby has definitely run amuck into a business. You are fortunate living near a great wine region (Sonoma) and the world's best importer (Kermit Lynch, Berkeley).

Avoid the point and medal wines - that's marketing hype. Find a local wine store to guide you. Build your palate on good basic examples of varietals and regions. Try wine with food - it's not a cocktail but a component of a meal. Write notes, take photos of labels. Enjoy.

A votre sante...

Oh yeah, a great read: "The Dean and Deluca Food and Wine Cookbook".

I'm glad to hear that the point system is just marketing hype as the wines on the top of the list are pretty expensive.

Thanks for the cookbook reco. There's a Dean and Deluca store on the way to Calistoga that I can stop in to.

Some pointers:

I've been at dinner tables where people can pick the exact origin of the grapes, this is annoying unless you're with a bunch of other wine *******s.

Smelling the cork = Idiot Douche

These days, there are so many other regions/wines that are excellent that I find it almost impossible for someone to be in the know.

Be open about wines, enjoy it for what it is, learn to pair, and most of it...don't make a big deal out of it.

Lastly, if you're collecting. Collect from today, not yesterday. Much cheaper and the proper way of doing so.

If I can add one simple word of advice: decant.

Go to Cost Plus or some other store and buy a $10 decanter. Pour red wine into it about an hour before drinking.

People think that decanting is for posers or snobby fine wines, but while a good decant might improve a great wine 5%, it will improve a mediocre wine 50%. ;)

I'd skip the visits to the vineyards and just start buying wine in a liquor store. Read up enough to know the basic types of wine made in the US and elsewhere and how they are labeled. Try ariety of whites that are 2-5 years old and reds that are 4-7 years old. Read the point-of-sale labels in the wine store and try to buy something that rates 85 to 88 and higer on somebody's rating scale ( reviews from Wine Spectator, etc.) Make notes of what you like and what you don't. If you read a basic book on wine, you'll learn what to look for when tasting a wine, so you'll be able to decide how sweet or dry you prefer, how many tannins in a red, etc.

I'd skip the really cheap stuff and drink decent quality wines. I'd also skip box wines, if you're trying to learn much. There are a few worth buying but you won't learn as much from drinking them.

For my money, I like whites from France and reds from either Italy or France. There's other good stuff out there but it's hit and miss. Good California wines tend to be expensive where I live, so I don't drink many of those. My wife's from Sonoma county and even she likes the European stuff better.

If you want to skip the decanting of a wine and start drinking right away, by a wine aerator, such as the Nuance Wine Finer, a decent one that you can buy for about 30 bucks.

JR

Gawd, this site rocks! Is there anything Pelicans don't know? Thanks again all.

Blackberry Merlot