It’s an unfortunate truth that many people who drink wine do so without thinking about the bottle of wine that they’re grabbing from the store. After all, the quality of wine ranges from high-end vintages to cheap boxes. How can someone who is coming to wine as an outsider choose a great bottle of wine? Here are some tips.
Consider What You’ll Be Eating
One of the rules to drinking wine, which is incredibly important to understand when choosing a bottle of wine, is that different wines go with different foods. Typically, you see an acidity in wines that goes well with both sweet and fatty foods. However, not all wines pair the same. For instance, white wine is traditionally understood to pair with fish. This is because white wine has higher acidity than red wine does, which goes well with seafood the same way citrus does. You don’t have to be a sommelier to come up with the right pairing, as long as you follow a couple of standard rules.
Think About What Flavors You Like
The current era of time that humans track has been going on for a little over 2,000 years, but using plants and grains to ferment into alcohol has been going on for more than 7,000 years. Over this time, humans have come up with a lot of different ways to flavor alcohol. Even in something like wine, which comes from grapes, there are ways to make it taste like it has earthy notes or other fruit in it, along with a host of other flavors. So, when you’re choosing the right bottle of wine for your tastes, it’s vital to understand what those tastes are. Once you can establish what types of things you like, you’ll be able to decide what wine is right for you.
Take Your Time to Read the Label
There is a lot of wine out there to choose from. After all, in the United States, which is the world’s leading consumer of wine, 33 million hectoliters were consumed in 2018. France, with a much smaller population, was number two at 26.8 million hectoliters. This means that when you go to the store, you’re going to be faced with a ton of different options for different wines. Most people go by price or the picture on the bottle. The truth is that most people don’t get the wine they want because of this. However, if you take the time to read the label, then you will know what you’re buying before you get the bottle.
Remember the Cork Isn’t Necessary
It’s easy to be sentimental about the cork in a wine bottle. After all, there is something romantic about popping it out of the bottle, and some people will tell you that the cork even adds to the flavor of the wine. There is nothing to say that this is true, though. Romantic, yes. Affecting the flavor, no. Unfortunately, because of these preconceived notions about the value of a cork in wine, a lot of people tend to assume that bottles with a screw top are cheaper, or not as good in some way or another. There are plenty of great options that use a screw top, so make sure to do your research on these bottles too.
Wine is a great option for many occasions, but a lot of people assume they don’t like wine because of a bad experience. Don’t let that happen to you, take the time to find the right bottle of wine.
