That stupid movie was hugely responsible for a massive decline in Merlot sales since then... and it's crazy. Merlots can be very tasty.
The perfect movie for wannabe wine snobs who can't think for themselves. My favorite reds are in the following order: 1. Cabneret Savignon 2. Merlot 3. Pinot Noir Im not a huge fan of Shiraz, a little too much bite for a wine. The only time I consume white is when I use it to cook seafood or pasta with.
I think a lot of it for me was just that I couldn't stomach the bitterness. It was definitely an acquired taste. When I started drinking wine regularly within the last two or three years I started out with rieslings, moscato, and other whites. As time has gone on, I've started trying a few more reds when I go to the store to buy stuff for dinner and some of them are actually pretty good. Although I can't discern the ingredients in wine the same as in good beer just yet, I'm at least making the attempt. One thing that I did notice on my own that you mentioned is there is no difference (at least for the most part) in how a wine tastes and how much you pay for it.
I love huge Cabernets - you might want to try some malbecs, especially from Argentina. Big, bold wines. Well. That's definitely not true. There's still a strong and widespread correlation between good wine and high prices. It's just not a 100% rule where you can expect only expensive wines are good, and that all of them are good.
Wine is the only thing I miss in sobriety. I never really drank it to excess and I think it can make a great meal even better. My dad is really good at finding wine in the 7-10$ range and will buy multiple bottles of it, esp now that I don't steal them. Actually wine isn't the only thing I miss, I miss taking LSD in the summer. I wish there was some bylaw that made tripping ok for sober people. Hell, Bill Wilson did it.
My dad used to make lots of wine (especially from wild fruits he could find- persimmon, cherry, elderberry, and one of his best was dandelion) and my parents still have several full racks of decent to great wines in the house so I was surrounded by it growing up. He wants to start making it again in the house they just moved into, as the atmosphere in the basement is suitable. I have yet to drink a white wine that was as satisfying as a red. A white wine tastes and feels incomplete in some way. I can't bring myself to spend a bunch of money on a bottle so I typically pick up a simple blend. I think they offer good bang for the buck and most have the right balance of warm fruitiness and dryness that I like. I remember one of my favorites being a cabernet-syrah blend. I think Menage-a-Trois is a solid go-to choice if you want a tasty red wine that works with a lot of meals or just being pulled from the bottle. My sister spent a year living in Saint-Emilion in the Bordeaux region of France so I have been spoiled rotten by some of the wines she brought back and what her host family has brought when they've visited us here. Some of the chateaus there make some ridiculously good stuff. Her host mother's ability to taste wine is unreal.
I only started drinking wine because I'd look like an uncouth lout whenever I took customers out to dinner and everyone wanted to get bottles for the table but I got a beer. I'll drink wine, but I don't really ever enjoy it as much as I do beer. I know beer. I can travel to any part of the country and know a good local brew that will pair well with steak, seafood, etc. With wine I don't know nearly enough other than to know a few brands and vintages that I like. If said restaurant doesn't have those I'm SOL. I also don't believe half the servers who will then inform me that X bottle which they have tastes very similar to the Silver Oak cab I inquired about. Motherfucker is just offering a similar priced option which tastes NOTHING like what I wanted, and then I end up enjoying my meal less which is the worst case scenario. I also severely dislike the snobbery that surrounds many wine tastings. The level of douchbaggery generally runs high at those events.
The classiest way to drink wine: Spoiler I've found that I tend to enjoy the majority of the wine's I've tried. My only issue is that after a glass or two, I start to get sick of the taste and it loses most of its enjoyment for me, especially with reds. Unless I'm having it with certain meals, I prefer beer or liquor in almost any other situation.
Wine typically wasn't something I drank just as a drink of choice for a drinking episode, but I did really enjoy it with a good meal, especially reds (unless we were eating fish, then we'd have a chardonnay.) Cabernets were by far my favorite and within that, my favorite was Tudal. When I was introduced to it (purely by accident) Tudal was a small 2 man operation in Napa Valley with small quantity, but high quality. I got to meet the founder, Arnold Tudal, at his winery, spent about 4 hours with him, tasted some wines from their aging casks. I still have a few bottles of his '92 cab that he signed for me. His office was covered with blue ribbons for his cabs (the only variety he made). Such a small quantity, it was rare his wine ever made it outside of California. And it was pricey, too ($35+/bottle, depending on the year). Arnold has since passed away, but some of his kids took over the business, and expanded it and its offerings. You can still get their cab (and still very pricey) but they now also made 3 different varieties of red table wines that are blends that are about $10-12/bottle. I served their Tractor Shed Red at a dinner party we hosted for some of my wife's co-workers (all wine aficianados) who never had it before and were floored by it. One couple brought it to a blind tasting at a wine club they belong to and it beat out Opus One (ridiculously priced at $100+/bottle). Yeah, it's that good. Here's a link to their website If you like reds or are looking to explore wine, their table wines are a great find. Sidenote: I remember when J. Lohr first came to market and I could get their cab for $5/bottle, and bought it by the case. Wish I had hung on to one of those cases.
Define expensive. For me I consider anything over $20 expensive. I generally stick in the $8-$16 range because my palate doesn't have enough experience with wines to be able to appreciate a nicer bottle. I can appreciate nice things, but I'll be damned if I'm spending money on something I can't taste the difference in.
This is something that I have been working on for the past year or so. I'll go to the store once a week or so and buy a couple bottles that range from $6.99-$9.99 just to give them a try, in hopes of finding a diamond in the rough. Here are some that I've had that stick out in my mind that I would buy again: Concannon Cabernet & Concannon Merlot ($6.99- Probably one of my favorite cheap wines) Robert Mondavi Meritage ($7.99) Red Diamond Merlot ($6.99- ok wine, definitely better if you let breathe) Chasing Lions Red Blend ($9.99) Cycles Gladiator Pinot Noir ($9.99) Acres Cabernet ($6.99) Mark West Pinot Noir ($8.99) Dancing Bull Zinfandel ($6.99) Pinot Evil Boxed Pinot Noir ($16.99 a box) Bogle Reds ($7.99- I've enjoyed the cabs, merlots, and pinots) I know there are more, but I'm blanking right now, though lately I've been buying more blends. With Whites, I can't really do the sweeter whites such as your pinot grigios and reislings, but I love a nice dry chardonnay or pinot blanc on a hot summers day or with a light fish or pasta dish. They are great for a refreshing change of pace. I don't have the palate to really distinguish the good whites from the bad ones like I do with reds, but I've not had one in the $7-10 range that I haven't enjoyed. If you want to kinda splurge a little bit though, the best chardonnay in my opinion is Sonoma Cutrer ($25), which is the most buttery, delicious white I've ever tasted. But yeah... I like wine. I like it a lot.
I was a stuanch supporter of the anti wine group until my early 30's. I still love bourbon, but the older I get the more my tastes change, in food and drink. My favorite at the moment is any malbec from South America.
I make my own wine, so I'd better like it. My preference is a merlot, and the dryer the better. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reproduce the dryness that I like in my own wine, so I have to buy a bottle every now and then just to indulge. In the meantime, I'm content with my prison hooch.
I used to hate wine, but now I really really enjoy it. And honestly, I probably drink wine more than I drink beer, though I enjoy both. Now that it's summer, I'm usually drinking a half a bottle or more of white in the evenings while I cook. It's been 100+ in DC for about a week now with heat indexes over 115, and there's nothing better than a light and fruity white wine right after coming in from the long walk home from work. I usually go with either a Torrontes or a Pinot Grigio. Not a fan of Chardonnay or Riesling *shudder*. Too sugary. For reds, I've always loved Malbecs more than all others. I know it's sort of trendy or whatever, but I've loved this type since I first tasted it in Argentina when I was 20. Terrazas de los Andes is a really great brand that you can find in most places I've seen...it usually runs around $13-15, so not too bad of a price. Root is a great brand as well. I bought it originally because the bottle is so cool looking, and it turned out to be great. Seems like a good way to try out new types of wine for those like me who don't know that much about it. For cheap red wine, I usually go with Crane Lake. It's something like $5 here in DC, and I think the quality is good enough. For those who say they don't like wine at all, I'd encourage you to try different types of wine, not just different brands. For example, if I just popped open a Riesling as my first drink, I'd think I hated white wine too. Just experiment around with some cheap bottles and see which ones are least offensive to you. Then you can price up from there (though not too much...seems to me that for many expensive bottles, you're paying for the brand and marketing allure, rather than any measurable increase in quality).
What I don't get is the classiness associated with wine relative to beer. Like I mentioned, I'm not a wine fan but I'm sure I could be if I gave it the time and effort that I've given to sampling different beers. Beers come in just as much variety as wine does. So why is one classier than the other?
I'm not saying that everyone should buy expensive wines. If it doesn't taste better to you, that's fine. I came home from Sonoma with a bunch of $50 (retail) bottles, but were some of the best wines I've ever had. $50 is a pricey bottle of wine, but I could taste the difference, and I've had $80-100 bottles that didn't taste as good as these. I got a discount, or I wouldn't have gotten so many of them, but they were still expensive and still awesome. I've also had $80 bottles that tasted stellar, and $80 bottles that weren't to my liking. All I'm saying is to say that taste and price are not correlated, is not accurate. There are cheap bottles that are great, and expensive bottles that are bad. However, it's rather like saying performance and price aren't correlated with sports cars - some cheap cars are fast, and some expensive cars aren't worth their dollar figure in performance, so you shouldn't assume one equals the other, but overall there's a general tie between price and performance.
I think it's because traditionally beer is associated as a blue collar beverage. It's cheap and easily portable (a can/bottle compared to a wine bottle and glasses). Also, wine incites images of snobs/yuppies and frilly things like wine tastings, stemware, and cheese and fruit plates. Beer is associated with hole in the wall bars, peanut shells on the floor, and jeans. Not that there's anything wrong with those things. They just aren't traditionally "classy". How many country songs are about wine?