I'm usually a beer drinker, but I want to get into wine. Can someone redpill me...

>Wine is supposed to be an "everymans" drink, like beer, and not some snobby drink of the "elite".

Then why did beer feel the need to rebrand strong ale as "barley wine" to make it sound fancier?

Wine redpill from a wine buyer at an upscale (read: 6 dollar milk) grocery store. The cheapest stuff sucks and the crazy expensive stuff you probably won't appreciate yet. Get advice from the least pretentious employee you can find at the local bottle shop. Dont spend more than 20 but not less that 15. Dont get upsold and dont fall for the Bordeaux/Napa/Tuscany meme.

Check out the Bolla brand. They're a northern Italy company and offer great wines for reasonable prices, and I haven't had any of their shit that I didn't enjoy.

>not realizing it's called this because of ABV

Don't be ridiculous, there's perfectly decent bordeaux for $20. Maybe not at your store, but it exists. I'd rather drink pic related than any $20 napa wine

the only wine I've immediately liked was a sweet red and apparently that makes me basic so I just stick to my beer and cocktails and leave wine to the people who actually enjoy it

>I don't drink stuff I like because the man-children that surround me give me shit for it

Grow a pair

Christ m8 you can get that for $20? I stand corrected..that said MoCo MD has some trash alcohol laws

>Wine is supposed to be an "everymans" drink, like beer, and not some snobby drink of the "elite".
It's both actually, and you know it. The nobles always had their vineyards that made their noble wines, and the locals made their local wines. The big difference was that the nobles favored wines suitable for aging that they could drink when they were decades old. That's where the whole vintage thing comes into play. The wine the locals drunk was meant for drinking young. That still holds true today. If you're not rich you're drinking wines meant to be drunk young, because you don't have a cellar where you put down bottles from a good vintage to drink ten or twenty years from now. But if you're a Wall St asshole showing off at Veritas you're going to drop four or five figures on a bottle that's well over a decade old.

Well I mean it probably comes out to like $22 or something, after tax. Depends how picky we want to get with the price limits.

eh too much sugar in sweet red, and my preferences put wines last in general

beer is full of estrogen, it actively turns you into a woman, it's known for giving you a big belly and it's faggot shit with only about 5%alcohol
you go for beer because you're a flyover white trash lowlife who won't drink wine because
>I aint no drinking nuffin from those women south of the wall

straight hard liquor is where it's at
everyone else is vaginas

it's worthless when eating

Ma man over here pretty much gave you a solid piece of advice. If you're drinking just to get drunk, eat some fatty snacks in between so your stomach doesnt sour the fuck up

wroang`

>If you're drinking just to get drunk, eat some fatty snacks in between so your stomach doesnt sour the fuck up
Or just start drinking with your dinner and stop just before reaching your desired level of intoxication.

Straight liquor is fine before or after a meal, or even as a pause in the middle, the way the Normans drink Calvados. But it overwhelms the flavors of all but the strongest foods.

I want to throw out that cheap wine can be good too. Wines like Barefoot isn't the best wine, but still is pretty good. Buying a higher price wine doesn't make it taste better.

Don't be a cheapskate though. I bought some $4 cabernet sauvignon. It wasn't bad.

>apparently that makes me basic
Drink what you want.

Strap that tinfoil hat on tighter faggot.

You told him Cletus

The fact that cheap wine can be good does not mean that cheap wine is always, usually, or even reasonably often good. Barefoot for instance is terrible. The best value wines come from non-prestigious AOCs around the Mediterranean. It's usually not possible to give generic recommendations because they're one-off batches of small production wines that you usually only find at decent sized shops that specialize primarily in wine. Conversely, you will never, not once, find a good and cheap wine at a grocery store.

>cheap wine can be good too.
That very much depends on the wine. Barefoot Merlot has a simple and overwhelming fruitiness that fans of more restrained wine will find unpleasant. But chilling it tames that down. I know a few cheapskates who drink really cheap, fruity reds chilled and enjoy the hell out of them that way. The French do it as well with the less expensive very fruity Beaujolais wines. Also really fruit forward reds pair much better with spicy food than more restrained wines. So if you were having tacos the Barefoot Merlot would actually be a better pairing than a more expensive Bordeaux. But I'd still want to drink something a little better than that, like maybe something from Chile.

>Barleywine is the term for high ABV beer!
>Unless it's a malt liquor
>Or a hipster microbrew
>Or a trappist ale
>Or a trappist dopple ale
>Or a trappist quadrupel ale
>Or an Eisbock
>Or a Doppelbock

Jeeze it's almost like Barleywine was an appellation made in reaction to the sudden popularity of imported wine muscling in on the domestic beer market

Whats up your ass nigger?

Wikipedia:

"The first beer to be marketed as barley wine was Bass No. 1 Ale, around 1870.[5]"

Yep, that's a real new appellation as a reaction to imported wines, numbnutz.

wine has an entire gauntlet of flavors, you should try many different kinds to find one you like

even beyond red and white wine, there are dozens of unique grape varieties with distinct tastes and then the fermentation and aging step changes the result as well

also worth noting is that more expensive wine doesn't necessarily mean better wine

>was an appellation
>was
>past tense

Nigger you are dense

I leik box wine. Goes down easy and gives you a raging hangover next day. feels bad

Some box wine is actually pretty good these days. The problem with the box is you can casually drink like three bottles' worth of it without realizing. After a few too many nights of killing a 3l box between the two of us my wife has requested I stop buying pic related.

Yeah, it seems like an economical idea, but when you wake up with a 2-bottle+ hangover, you don't care that you "saved" $5-$7.

if you aren't sucking wine from a box straight out of the spigot you're still in good shape

same, had a "good box wine" phase but it just turned me into a lush

whoever invented 750ml knew what he was doing

You can't go wrong with Portuguese wine.

>why did beer feel the need to rebrand strong ale as "barley wine"

Alcohol content.

:(

Well said, Stefan.

...

The boxed Bordeaux near me ends up being half the price of buying comparable bottles, so the deal is hard to resist. But half price wine isn't such a deal when you just end up drinking twice as much.

redpill is a matrix reference fucking millenial idiot

It's Ste-phon you simpleton

Aldi Australia has a good cheap wine.

>winepill
>polpill
>pillpill

Why so much hate user? Using this pic of a feline tattoo, show me were OP touched you.

Or, you can not be a faggot and have whatever you like with whatever other food that you like.

General rules like this are for when you're having a party and have a 5 course menu with paired wines chosen by - experts.

No, it's StephON.

You've got to emphasize the ON or the unwashed won't pronounce it properly.

you're literally the only one who made it about /pol/

Bolla Italian wines are all good, and cost around 7-10 bucks at the grocery store, which is a good price.

Whites....
Try the pinot grigio and the soave. The pinot is a little drier, but both are great sipping wines.

Reds....
Pinot noir, cabernet savignon, bardolino, valpolicella, and their chianti are all good. None of them are too dry, or too sweet.

Once you find a bottle you like, just try some other brands of the same type, or try some French wines made with the same type of grapes.

I'd avoid the American wines and stick with the French and Italian brands because they make enough to not have to charge you out the ass the way the U.S. makers tend to do, and you get a better flavor and quality for a lower price.

I used to work at a store that specialized in selling wine and would organize a bottle or two a night.
>Price point
makes no difference to the taste of the wine
>Location
does make a difference and you should learn about the bottles from the areas you like
>Vintage
does also make a difference, but if you're not dropping coins like like an injured sonic, your not going to notice any change in taste
>Just be you and don't buy into the hype
Most of the wine snobs are just drunks who try to justify their ism with fermented grape juice and class.

>mfw I will drink a 750 mil bottle on a fun night with dinner without issue

Am I an alcoholic or do I just have good tolerance?

yes

>being so triggered by a waiter that wasn't named tim, emily, mike, or katie, that you were sent into a weeks-long spiral of madness

$500 grinder guy is that you?

That depends on who you ask. A doctor would tell you that you really should drink more than that on any particular day. And if you're doing that every night most folks in recovery would suggest that you join them. I've been drinking about that almost every day for over 20 years, and my doctor says my liver enzymes are fine. So by some metrics I'm an alcoholic, but I'm a functional one, so zero fucks given.

>should drink
meant "shouldn't drink"

It also depends on what wine it is. If it's some 9% pussy juice I can polish off a bottle and I just sleep deeper than average. If it's a sherry, I'll be a bit late for work the next day and have circles under my eyes.

It is only once in awhile, Like once a week or so. Normally it'd be about a glass or two.

French here, pretty decent choice for a first bottle, although I prefer my Bordeaux with 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, or maybe some Cabernet Franc thrown into the mix.

2014 is still a bit young for this type of wine though, you wanna give it at least a few more years to mature.

I suggest you buy some Vallée du Rhône wine next time, so you can compare this bottle with something sweeter and see what you like best. You can also find some pretty decent reds from Chile or Argentinia for $10 a bottle.

Then the metric I'd use to decide is whether you feel like you absolutely have to have the alcohol, and whether it's ever gotten in the way of your career or relationships. Yes to any of those and you're an alcoholic. No to all and probably not.

>so triggered it doesn't even know it's replying to more than 1 person

Pay attention to what type of grapes are in the wines you try and where the wines were made. Eventually you'll build up an idea of what kinds of wine you like.

That only works if the labels are accurate. Not applicable in America

My only tip is to get an app or a notebook to keep track of all the shit you've had. Can't tell you how many times I've gone "damn, there's a wine that would be perfect for this meal/gift but I can't remember what it's called".

here is the best red under 10$

looks like meme wine judging from the label

Don't judge it til you've tried it. Tastes like tart cherries and oak, and each cork has the individual crimes printed on it.

>and each cork has the individual crimes printed on it.
basically confirms my suspicion that it's a meme wine

Another user here, I bought a bottle once for the meneness. It's actually really good.

Drink enough white wine until you become dependent on it. You love it then

>tart cherries and oak

That doesn't sound appealing at all.

>mfw you can't even reference The Matrix on Veeky Forums anymore

That's nothing. There used to be this funny comic about a frog who pulled his pants down to pee...

If you want to have some basic understanding of wine that will put you well above 90% of the population in North America, you should aim to pick up 3 bottles of each of the most common types from different vineyards. For best results, buy three bottles at a time of a single variety and drink them fairly close in time so that you will not only memorize the major flavour profile of the variety, but also start to appreciate the minor differences between the years/vineyards.

During this phase, preferably only purchase relatively cheap corked wines from a single vintage - the bottle should have a year and variety on it like "2006 Merlot." This isn't because this is objectively "better", but so that you can isolate flavours better for a more effective learning experience. Bottles without a year may be a blend of multiple years, and wines with unconventional names like "Rushing Red" are blends of different varieties, rather than a single variety; these wines can be perfectly acceptable for drinking, but won't get you any street cred around wine snobs. Also, cork is relatively expensive and it means you're not going to be buying bottom-shelf wine because those are too cheap to include cork, so you're going to be forced to buy something that is at least somewhat decent.

By the time you get through all that (maybe around 40 bottles of wine), you should have a fair understanding of the major flavour profiles of the most common wines, as well as have a taste for the more subtle flavours and a good idea of where you want to go from there if you want to continue your tasting journey.

Yeh bro.
The current special 'Salutti' Italian red and white blends for $7 are good everyday/cooking wine, used the white tonight cooking up some quail and had to stop myself drinking it before there was nons left for the sauce

This is a perfectly constructed troll post. Well done.

F

my favorite wine. goes from $6.99-8.99 a bottle, goes good with everything.

45% Zinfandel
35%Merlot
20%Cabernet Sauvignon

t. numale

>"mansplaining": starter pack

if you want to build some knowledge id say its enough for the start to learn about the major grapes and regions, and the combination of those.
there are many charts online which list the quality of th wine for each region for every year, those are a good guideline for a novice.
(it is actually quite accurate, there are definitely good and bad years for winemaking, the circumstances of the weather and requirements vary for each region so it is always different)

Find a chart, learn the major grapes and know the regions+ which grapes are common in each.
thisll take you about half an hour.
from there its just tasting and figuring out what you like, its a continuous process with only subjective answers, like for every other interest in a foodgroup. My rec would be to not spend too much on bottles, i dont know about prices where you live, but here in germany i dont pay more than 10€ on a bottle, unless i tried it before and decide its something i want for a specific occasion or a friend gets a special price for some boxes of a more expensive one.
Youll be pretty quick to find out what types you like, knowing if you like sweet or dry will already increase your enjoyment when buying/drinking a wine 75%.
and about your specific bottle, bordeaux is overrated and the stuff you find in supermarkets for small money is mostly bad.
A widely available red thats good/cheap would be "flying solo" for example, for whites id recommend a dry riesling, "kloster eberbach" is the most famous one from the best region

General good rule of thumb is to make sure it's produced and bottled in the same country. Label will tell you.

>American "wine"
kys