Calling all sommeliers

March 9, 2005 1:12 PM

I recently turned 21 and I'd like to start learning about wine.

There is an intimidating amount of information on the Web and I don't know where to start. Is it worth reading about wine or does one have to taste to really learn? If it is worth it, does anyone know any good books on the subject? I'd like to be able to discern between different grape varieties and start developing some preferences. As a college student, I do have some budget limitations.

posted by Crushinator to food & drink (25 comments total)

I know it's probably the last resource that any would recommend, but Wine for Dummies (IMO) is not a bad place to start. It's a fairly easy read and has a lot of good information on how wine is made, different grape varieties, and a lot more.

After that, the only recommend that really, really works is to drink a lot of wine. Visit some wineries (they're actually a lot of fun) and talk to some of the staff and vintners (if you can). Most local college's have wine appreciation courses available that are not only a good way to meet people, but it's a damn good excuse to get a little tipsy during the week (if you need one).
posted by purephase at 1:19 PM on March 9, 2005

*ahem* ... the only recommendation...
posted by purephase at 1:20 PM on March 9, 2005

I agree with the wine appreciation class recommendation. It'll give you a great foundation from which to develop your taste in wine. But the #1 best thing to do is to start drinking. The great thing about wine these days is you don't need to spend more than $10 - $15 on a bottle to get something great. I'm not sure if you have a Trader Joes or Cost Plus World Market in your area, but they usually have great deals on wines.
posted by pmbuko at 1:32 PM on March 9, 2005

A great article that recently appeared in Guardian:

"Men spoil wine. They take it too seriously. They want to master it. They want to dress it up in mystery and tradition, and imbue it with intrinsic maleness so that they can be superior about it. Men reach a certain age - 34 or so - and stop thinking they know how to play the guitar, or how to DJ, and start thinking instead that they 'know' wine. They stop default-ordering the House option in restaurants, and start asking for 'the list'....

Men don't understand that wine is not about this. Wine is actually just for the drinking, and for the being drunk. That's why it was invented. Men want to take the joy out of wine, and replace it with snobbery, superciliousness, and another opportunity for sexism."

Damn the vintage, just pass the pinot

It gets a little silly but that's kind of how I feel about wine: just enjoy it! Much of the wine industry is based on encouraging people to overcompensate their supposed lack of knowledge about wine by going all-out nuts.

Take a class if you can, read a book or two. Many people agree that one of the best ways to pick up on wine is to read monthly/weekly mags that have a small section on food and wine or a resident wine columnist and see what he/she has to say every month.

Don't let it overwhelm you! Have a good time!
posted by moxyberry at 1:39 PM on March 9, 2005

Yeah, you'll need to drink a lot of wine. That's not a bad thing, though. Many of your local wine stores will offer tastings at specific times. Wine societies, restaurants, and wine bars will also do this. Where do you live? There are probably wineries somewhere nearby.

A couple of relatively accessible books for a beginner are Oz Clarke's Introducing Wine, and Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher's Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine (don't be put off by the fact that it's from the WSJ, it's extremely unpretentious). A lot of people seem to like the Windows on the World book, but I personally find it pretty dry.

Also, read lots of other authors. As with any critical medium, your goal isn't to slavishly follow the tastes of experts, but to find someone whose taste matches your own. The only way to discover this correlation is to drink a lot and read a lot.

Keeping a tasting journal is really useful, also. Wine is fun.
posted by casu marzu at 1:39 PM on March 9, 2005

There are also lots of wine courses. While thses are in NYC and you're in NC, it might be fun to take a trip and learn about wine in NYC or Napa. Drinking lots of wine has taught me what I like, not necessarilly about wine. Wine is very facinating and complex (for example, what has stayed with me is how temperature, location affect taste, acidity), and when I was being trained by the sommelier of a restaurant I was going to work at, he reccommended what may have been the Oxford Companion to Wine.
posted by scazza at 1:39 PM on March 9, 2005

Oh, hey, you're in Asheville? I assume you know that Biltmore Estate has a winery, although I don't recall much about the wines themselves.

Hop on I-81 north some weekend when the weather is nice and head into Virginia, a state that has put a lot of capital into its wine industry and now has about eighty wineries, including a whole bunch in the Charlottesville area. Here's a guide. Many parts of Virginia wine country are great to just get lost in.
posted by casu marzu at 1:49 PM on March 9, 2005

well, i started getting into wine when i went on a wine tour. I live in california, though, so that helps me a bit. But i know there are certain wine festivals and wine expos all over the US.

The main thing that helps was just getting to taste so many different types of wines and figuring out what i like. In addition, there may be a good wine bar nearby where you can pay a couple of bucks per sample. The local wine bar near my house rotates the tasting selection each week and it lets me try many types of wine that i wouldn't otherwise taste.

And like scazza says, this will only let you know what you like about wine. If you want to know about details you'll have to hit the books. To really understand wine you're gonna have to do a bit of reading and drinking.
posted by escher at 1:50 PM on March 9, 2005

Oh, hey, you're in Asheville? I assume you know that Biltmore Estate has a winery, although I don't recall much about the wines themselves.

Just last year my family took me to the Biltmore Estate. We visited their winery for tasting, which is included in the ticket price. Unfortunately, I was only 20 at the time and they are very strict about carding (they have a sign saying that parental consent is not sufficient). I was offered grape juice. I declined.

I am, I confess, a little bitter, but even so I would like to go back and try it again.
posted by Crushinator at 1:58 PM on March 9, 2005

I answered a similar question (well, at least the part about good books) thusly.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:17 PM on March 9, 2005

We have many wineries in this area (60+) and the best way to learn about wine is to work for one. Apply for a job in a tasting room or volunteer during the crush. Be warned, the wine industry attracts a unique brand of asshole.
posted by rotifer at 3:08 PM on March 9, 2005

The only way to learn about wine is to drink it. Go to every wine tasting you can. Buy and drink wine. Pay attention to what you're drinking and you will learn.

The two books I've found most useful are both by Hugh Johnson. There's the World Atlas of Wine and the Modern Encyclopedia of Wine.

There's a lot of pretentious wine writing crap about "cassis overtones with wet ostrich feather body" and a lot of obnoxious wine ratings saying "this wine is 2% better than that wine". I never found any of that useful. But learning the varietals, developing a taste memory of the styles, learning the taste difference between aged and new wine. - those things are useful.
posted by Nelson at 5:01 PM on March 9, 2005

I'd agree with what's been said here, but I'd recommend you steer clear of reviews for a little while until you know your own tastes. Also, check out the aroma wheel and try some of Dr. Noble's "experiments", it's amazing how much more you'll taste when you do. It's also fun to do side-by-side tastings - get a couple friends to bring bottles that are the same grape variety, same vintage, and same region and taste the differences between them. One last tip: it's easier to gain some experience in the wines of one region and then take what you've learned there and apply it to different regions.

I could go on (I run winery tasting rooms & wine clubs for a living), so you're welcome to email the address in my profile.
posted by cali at 5:53 PM on March 9, 2005

Do beer first.
posted by rxrfrx at 8:49 PM on March 9, 2005

Do not EVER buy a three dollar bottle of merlot. Ever. Cheap wine is horrible, your taste buds will be better rewarded by drinking the guttervomit from a bum.
posted by Apoch at 11:07 PM on March 9, 2005

A wrinkle on the "drink lots of wine" front: get used to drinking wine regularly with dinner if you're at all serious about learning about it. Before you learn how to recognize good wine, it's best to learn what you like. If you don't like earthy flavors (a lot of novice drinkers don't), then a hgh-end Bordeaux won't impress you.

Go to your local wine store and ask for a recommendation of a $10-ish red. Drink some with dinner, and some more the next day. Do you like it? Buy another bottle. If not, go back to the same store and ask for another recommendation, letting them know what you didn't like about it (keep it simple- too dry, to fruity, etc.). Try the same with whites. You'll quickly learn, as well, that you like certain wine-food combinations better than others. My favorite wine store employees are the people who you can approach, tell them what you're having for dinner and what you'd like to spend, and have them recommend you a good pairing. Of course, I'm a bit spoiled since my local place is owned by a former sommelier...
posted by mkultra at 9:26 AM on March 10, 2005

I'm going to have to disagree with Apoch. It's really only in the US that wine is expensive at all. In Italy, France, New Zealand, amazing wine is cheap, and chianti in Italy can cost next to nothing. Don't let other people tell you what to drink, know your own tastes.

Also, I would disagree with mkultra, you don't have to drink wine regularly with dinner, either. If you're eating at home, like most of us do most of the time, you have to buy an entire bottle of something you may discover you hate and won't know why. I would say order wine when you're out, when you can order by the glass, and when there is an educated person on hand to help you. Usually if you don't like it after the first sip, it can easily be replaced (always tell your server/bartender if you don't like what you ordered. They want you to be happy. They'll help you). Don't get stuck at home with a bad red. Yuck.
posted by scazza at 9:36 AM on March 10, 2005

That's a good point regarding getting wine by the glass, but don't send a glass back because you don't like it- it's disrespectful to the restaurant who selected the wine and now has to throw a glass of it out. The ONLY reasons to send something back (food or wine) is if it's not what you ordered or if it's spoiled. If you're sitting at the bar, it's totally reasonable to ask for a taste of something, but if you're at a table, don't ask your waiter to fetch you sips of wine.

Keep in mind, though, that a glass of wine will cost you $5-$7, plus tip. For a couple bucks more, you can buy a whole bottle for home.
posted by mkultra at 10:28 AM on March 10, 2005

i've not read any books on wine and don't really know much about it, but if you're the only person in your house that drinks you might want to look at a vacuvin - a rubber stopper and a pump that sucks much of the air out. it seems (i'm not 100% convinced, and i don't care enough to do a blind test, but it's not expensive anyway) to help keep wine a bit longer, so you can drink a bottle over a couple of days (to be honest, i might even go a week).

also, maybe i'm a drunken sot, but i don't really understand scazza's point. the only times i've ever had wine that was *undrinkable* it had, i presume, corked (which is either a pretty rare occurence, or i just can't tell). and if you don't like it much, you can use it to make a great lentil stew, or pasta sauce. but wine here is cheap, so that might explain the difference in views.

also, i've been on some tours of wineries, and they don't teach you much, imho (it's entertainment, not school), although they're fun.
posted by andrew cooke at 10:32 AM on March 10, 2005

It's definitely easier to buy a bottle of wine for dinner at home if you aren't eating alone. No question it's cheaper -- in the U.S., a glass of wine at a restaurant often costs nearly as much as the whole bottle would cost in the store. Sharing a bottle with other people (or one special other person) is one of wine's great pleasures, in any case, so learning with friends is a great way to go.
posted by casu marzu at 11:08 AM on March 10, 2005

Gather up a bunch of friends and have a tasting party. My friends and I do this with beers all the time, and I expect the same can go for getting to know wines.

Eight people splitting a bottle would be reasonable (you only want to taste it, after all!) and with food you'll probably be able to go through 4-6 bottles total (I drink like a fish, though, and can easily clear two bottles a night if I'm not careful).

As for a good wine to start on, try the stuff coming out of Bonny Doon and their cohorts. These are the guys who are championing the Stelvin Enclosure (ie; screwtop) and make fun, inexpensive wines.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:48 AM on March 10, 2005

Well-known illustrator (he did the drawings for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, among other things) Ralph Steadman did a great, quirky little book about wine called The Grapes of Ralph. It's full of cool illustrations and stories and also helps you get to know about wines and wine regions around the world.

Bonny Doon is certainly great. Another couple of relatively cheap recommendations: I've been enjoying this great Zinfandel out of California called Four Vines. For an everyday red, there's this French stuff called Les Heretiques. It's a great value at about $8-9 and goes fairly well with most any food.
posted by lackutrol at 12:52 PM on March 10, 2005

By the way, I'm in NY. It's funny that French and Italian wines are often as cheap or cheaper than the California equivalent here (I assume that's because it costs more to transport over land than sea). I was shocked at how little wine cost on the West Coast when I visited there. My point is I guess that location will influence what you can purchase on a regular basis.
posted by lackutrol at 12:56 PM on March 10, 2005

Try each of the following grapes - they're important.

Reds: cabernet sauvignon (bordeaux), pinot noir (burgundy), zinfandel, chianti, gamay (beaujolais). You should probably know what merlot tastes like but that's as far as I'll go.

White: sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, semillon (go out of your way to find some), pinot blanc, muscatel, chablis, riesling.

You don't need to pay more than $20 to get a perfectly nice example of any of these. Often $10 suffices.

I suggest not mixing different wines in one evening. You'll get confused. Also, wine is definitely best drunk in company, and with food. Find someone you can talk to about it - maybe over dinner?
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:27 AM on March 11, 2005 [1 favorite]

this is a bit late, but you might like to read this article from the lrb (i read the paper version last night). for me, it was quite an eye-opener. i didn't realise that drinking wine was "treated like that" in america. perhaps it isn't - the article may be biased - but it's worth being aware that "knowing about wine" doesn't have to be equivalent to "being able to duplicate robert parker's points".
posted by andrew cooke at 4:24 AM on March 12, 2005