So I'm starting a wine general, but I also don't know shit about wine. It's something I'm interested in getting into.
A few preliminary questions:
-What's the cheapest wine still worth buying?
-There are no Wineshops within an hour of me. What are some wines I can acquire easily that are worth trying?
-Why do people act like I'm a bitch because so far I've only really liked white wines?
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trust me mate, I've tried this on numerous occasions, this is not the place to do this. It just doesn't work.
Fuck everyone who rousts you about red vs. white. All wine is good.
to be honest it is something that develops over time, unfortunately you just have to try your way through, when you like a wine take note of what grape and maybe what rough area, this is a process that takes time and will lead you to understand what you like in the end. its no science and it should be about fun times
>Why do people act like I'm a bitch because so far I've only really liked white wines?
Because they are fucktards. Most people when they begin to try Wine tend to gravitate towards Whites mainly due to the higher Sugar content and fruit profiles of the varieties. That being said, there are a hell of a lot of great long lived White Wines.
Try some White Burgundy's, Chablis, White Bordeaux's, Hunter Valley Semillon, Clare Valley and Mosel Riesling's, California Chardy and so on...there are so many great wines out there.
This. I tried twice last week. Each thread got no more than four posts before 404ing.
OP, I'd love to help but the problem is that the questions you're asking are A) subjective, and B) highly dependent on your region.
At least tell us your general location so we might know what is good in your area.
>What's the cheapest wine still worth buying?
>There are no Wineshops within an hour of me
This speaks volumes. You live in a place where people aren't into wine. This makes it tough to get into wine because there's no local wine culture and the folks stocking the wine shops very likely have no fucking idea whether or not the wine they sell is good, they're just selling stuff that's familiar enough to their customers that people who don't know wine will buy it. Being in such a situation makes it very difficult to taste the variety of wines needed to establish some kind of understanding and discrimination when it comes to wine.
I'd draw the following parallel: say you wanted to get into dining out, and were eager to really get an appreciation for good restaurants. But all you had near you were chain restaurants, a mediocre Italian American red sauce joint and Something or Other Grill(e). You'd be SOL. It's just not gonna happen.
Yeah OP is kinda fucked. Best bet is to go hang out at a decent restauraunt in his area and hang out at the bar and just ask to try different wines.
OP what backwoods flyover do you live in anyway?
Yeah, I wasn't trying to be flippant. It's just nearly impossible to really get into wine if you live someplace where no one gives a shit about it. Because how the hell do you taste a variety of good wines in a place where the people selling it can't tell good from mediocre or awful.
I've experienced this first hand while traveling. I drink wine at home because I live in a place where there are many good wine shops run by knowledgeable people who take pride in their selections. But I have in-laws in Central Wisconsin, and there the only drinkable wines you can easily get are mass market Bordeaux and Chianti. So when I visit there I drink the local beers, which are good and what my in-laws are drinking anyways.
What you drink is sometimes very regional. Drinking wine is hard in a place where wine is not all that popular.
Don't get into wine on purpose. It's extremely expensive over time, for what amounts to just drinking liquids. On top of that, you're going to start disliking cheap wine which will cost you even more whenever you want to drink some, or cause social issues. There is no reason to purposefully make yourself dislike more things.
Of all the things you can "get into" regarding the kitchen, wine and coffee are probably objectively the worst.
merlot and cabernet sauvignon are pretty nice, also that italian one, erm, riocha
stay away from wines that don't tell you the grape(s) used, "soft and fruity" "light and fruity". these are bullshit that aren't even wines, they take the last bits of the grapes and mix them together. officially they shouldn't be allowed to call them wines as they actually just get grape juice and add grain alcohol.
many studies have shown that the cost of the wine doesn't often translate to a much better product. all you can really do is try a few cheapish wines and see what you like
wines from chile, south africa and australia aren't genreally very expensive but tend to taste really nice
I remember some training I got when I was managing a convenince store that red wines are defined by their fruitiness, and whites by their acidity.
try some medium fruity's and medium fruities
literally just try some shit, if you aren't out to impress people. if you had to go for somethign sight unseen, don't buy the cheapest shit, by the level above that that is actually genuine wine and see what you like
Trader joes 2 buck chuck.
for the money $2.99 it can't be beat.
warning this post will trigger wine snobs
>riocha
topkek
I like it, what's wrong with it?
do you have anything positive to add? mr internet troll nazi frog deplorable?
He's taking the piss because you mean Rioja, typically from Spain.
What is that? Not snobbing, btw.
>because you mean Rioja, typically from Spain.
oh right, the italian one is called riocha
fucks sake
Me & my grandmother make wine together every year or two. So far we've made:
>~300 litres of apple wine (shit's lit af, think white wine but less sour/acidic)
>~200 litres of apple + pomegranate wine (about the same qualities, taste is less distinct though)
>~90 litres of Shiraz wine, a very sour and acidic wine compared to normal Merlot/Sauvignon wines
we made this one last year, tasted it for the first time just yesterday
>~150 litres of Cabarnet Sauvignon wine
made this one this year. And let me tell you Veeky Forums you do not know tasty juice until you've had a cup of freshly squeezed PURE Cabarnet Sauvignon grape juice, right before you started making wine outta that shit.
Charles Shaw wine sold by Trader Joes
Some of it is pretty decent
thrillist.com
>What's the cheapest wine still worth buying?
wine doesn't work like that
Wine is a meme. Multiple studies have shown that so called wine "experts" can't even tell the difference between red and white. PDF of study linked below.
Yeah nah. It's still Rioja you dopey cunt. Pronounced RIOKA.
Also if you are like me and don't have Trader Joes but have a Whole Foods in your area, they offer exactly the same wine repackaged as Three Wishes, and it costs the same 2.99.
Chianti is generally cheap and good.
You're expecting anons to read 12 pages. GLWT.
I know what you mean though. Wine "experts" are generally full of shit and you should just drink what you like.
In the UK, I highly recommend Aldi for inexpensive but reasonable quality wine.
On the continent, it seems pretty difficult to buy a bad bottle of wine, even for €2.
maybe this might help you find a flavour you like
>can't even tell the difference between red and white
Now that's just a load of fucking horseshit.
I don't think I've ever seen any savory red varieties, they must not be popular in Canada or something.
some of the more popular ones are Côtes du Rhône, Médoc, Beaujolais and Rioja
Should I be looking in the french wine section? I'm getting that vibe from the names
I live in Canada and I've seen literally all of those. You just need to look for wine in actual wine stores, same as most other places.
My favs from the savory red tree are:
Italian: Barbaresco, Chianti, Barbera
Spanish: Rioja (Reserva or gran reserva)
French: Bourgogne, Beaujolais, Rhone
Yeah I know I'm a basic bitch when it comes to the french
>Don't get into wine on purpose. It's extremely expensive over time
There is some truth to this. Wine is not a poor man's hobby, especially if you live in a place where it's not locally produced (or local production is a boutique industry). Where I live a decent bottle of wine costs between $10-$15. If I lived in France or Spain it would be half that. But the reality is that as someone who enjoys wine on pretty much a daily basis my wine budget is about three times my food budget. I'm in the position to see that as an affordable luxury, but if my financial picture were different this wouldn't be possible. Depending on where you live and what you earn wine can be a total luxury, and might only be worth "getting into" if you have luxury dollars to spend.
If you want dry, less fruit-forward reds, then yes, old world wines usually fall under that category. French and italian wines are organized into pretty consistent "styles" that are generally organized by region so a relatively inexpensive beaujolais, or a chianti, or a bordeaux blanc is going to give you a good idea of what that style is like.
For french reds, i'd try a burgundy, a bordeaux, a cote du rhone and a beajolais
for french whites: i'd try a white burgundy, a white bordeaux, a chablis (a type of white burgundy that doesn't have any oak), and a muscadet (personal favorite to eat with oysters).
For italian reds i'd try a barolo or barbaresco, a chianti, a montepulciano d'abruzzo, and a super-tuscan (generally a bordeaux style blend but with some italian grapes)
For italian whites, i'd try a Vermentino (also called pigato), a pinot grigio, a trebbiano (d'abruzzo is a decent style),
I don't know shit about wines and even I know whites and reds can be enjoyed differently on different occasions. When I'm out for dinner with my GF and I have a heavy meat dish (like steak or lamb) I drink a red wine. If we eat some light pasta with salmon and lime, a red wine would ruin the dish.
They are both enjoyable in different ways. How can people argue on this?
>How can people argue on this?
BECAUSE they're enjoyable in different ways. Different people have different opinions, and like any opinion-oriented discussion, some people think theirs are better than others. It's no different than discussing politics, sports teams, or which company makes the best car. Guaranteed shitstorm.
>Wine is not a poor man's hobby
That's because it isn't a hobby, unless of course you're the kind of person who considers watching films to be a hobby. Gardening is a hobby, baking is a hobby, etc. Deciding which wine you like is not a hobby.
people argue it because they misinterpret studies wherein somelliers were unable to distinguish between red and whites in blind tastings because somelliers are trained to use visual cues as well as smell and taste to make distinctions like that. If you had trained them to identify red vs. white based on taste they'd probably score better, but that doesn't fit into their narrative of "hurr durr wine is stupid u can't even tell red from white and i only say this because i'm a pleb and need to bring everyone down to my garbage level of taste"
Had a pure grenache from rhone some time ago, always good those.
Also this wine,
vins-etonnants.com
Which was surprisingly good for a roussillon.
What good bottles you've encountered recently?
General
Not all wine is good. But good wine can be of any variety.
I get your sentiment though mate, I try to go into every wine I taste with no expectations or prejudice, because I've been pleasantly surprised by a £5 bottle, whilst at the same time severely let down by a £70 bottle, across all varieties and regions.
I'm jealous as fuck of your relationship with your grandma dude, that sounds awesome. One of mine has dementia, and the other is a super no-alcohol Christian. Glad I at least have my dad who also loves wine.
They taste completely objectively different?
That said, I'm a firm believer that price is never a definite indicator of quality, especially given the subjectivity of rating based on flavour, personal preference/palate etc.
>this
Aldi is awesome for wine. My employer created Aldi's new e-commerce business, and we got a crazy discount for a while on the website. I got so much amazing wine for next to nothing.
>They taste completely objectively different?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Nobody would ever confuse, say, a Zinfandel with a Cabernet. But there are others which are not so simple to tell apart without visual cues.
Got a case of 12 assorted Côte des Rhônes from Laithwaites in the UK recently, and there was one called Cuvée du Vatican, which was absolutely lovely. Zero idea around appellation or blend, but if you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend.
I'm biased toward French wine, particularly the vendeé, because that region was my introduction to wine, and shaped my palate a lot (the family holidayed a lot there in my teenage years).
I guess I can see where you're coming from, with lighter, less pungent reds I guess. Those reds don't tend to be something I enjoy thought, which I guess would support your point as I'm also not a big fan of white wine in general, which wild vouch for the similarity in taste.
Depends on how far down the rabbit hole you go. I know guys with cellars who do vertical profiles of their favorite producers. That is definitely hobby territory. I'm not in that tax bracket, so I don't drink much wine with bottle age on it. But I know enough to nerd out with those guys. And I do keep track of which were good years for each region. And when traveling to places that produce wine (Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Australia) I've made it a point to try all the local stuff I can't get at home easily. I'm going to a Spanish cider tasting this evening. So for me I'd also consider it a hobby, even though I don't have the dough to keep a proper cellar.
Alright I'll keep an eye out, I've been drinking dozens of different kinds of cabsav, shiraz and merlot and been wanting to try new things
thanks
cheers, that's really good
omg, you are so illinformed, jesus
Autistic retard
Watching movies can be a hobby. You developed an enjoyment of certain directors you analyze the plots you listen to the film scores and so on. Just like with wine, you try different wines you enjoy the different tastes and you think about which ones you would like to get next.
Also for many wine is a lot more than just trying different wines to see what you like. There's pairing it with foods for best effect. There's collecting bottles that will age in your cellar over the next decade or two. There's travel to regions where specific wines are produced to visit specific chateaux/bodegas/estates. There's the history and science of it as well as the simple enjoyment of drinking the stuff.
More than enough to make a hobby our of.
>cheapest wine that's still good
Probably Anekena for me. Still about 8-14 dollars a bottle from white to red.
>bitch for drinking white wine
I enjoy white wine until it gets colder outside then I switch to some good Pinot noir. I like the way it warms me up. My preference for whites aren't too insane. I like them thicker and more citrus but I like my Pinot thin and less barrely. Both not too sweet. Hope this helps.
Fuck. I forgot image. I might be drunk.
>Cuvée du Vatican
Looks like a chateauneuf-du-pape, of course it's lovely.
>I'll bluff this one out
Post link please expert
link? I was commenting about hte wine guide
Got a few kind of fun bottles recently. Pic related is one trip recently- super excited to see the Radikon, it's not something you see very often.
I also have a bottle of Guigal hermitage I'm hanging on to for an occasion, and a bottle of Brigaldara amarone 1998 that I'm probably going to crack this weekend sometime.
Aah, ok. I thought you wee arguing about the pronunciation of Rioja. My apologies.
Living in a well known region in matter of wine, I can still find good cheap wines like Custoza and Bardolino. There are also world top wines like Valpolicella Ripasso and Amarone sold at a fair price (My all time favourite is Lugana btw)
You don't even understand the subject of the study.
Considering that sommeliers are tested based primarily on BLIND TASTINGS, that would seem to point to the reality that those with developed palates are quite capable of judging wine based on smell and taste alone.
It's just that you, like the rest of the utterly clueless Amerifats on this thread know nothing about wine whatsoever.
And before you suggest it, I actually happen to prefer beer, personally.
Goddammit, user, I am jealous of where you live.
>Amarone at decent prices
Maximum jelly, user.
Go take a course. Learn the cultivars, learn the topology of the grape (hint: all the tannins are in the skin) Go to those faggy wine tasting parties. You'll love it.
So I just ordered an electric corkscrew. Am I a cuck?
Depends if you're an arm amputee or not.
I had lived in Germany for some time and had a litre TetraPak 'boxed' wine each night for 80 cents. It was a few years ago, but getting drunk was cheap
in australia we've had such a glut of wine we have "cleanskins" which are just overflow from the good wine vats.
there was a time when these $5 bottles are carrying $20 wine.