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  #16  
Old 01-10-2019, 04:33 AM
steveh steveh is offline
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Originally Posted by Shades of Blue View Post
2) I like fruity, but not tart and more sweet. But, not ridiculously sweet lol.
This is a common error with "beginners" - confusing "sweet" with "fruit".

Very little red wine is actually sweet, i.e. contains a relatively high proportion of sugars.
Low alcohol = high residual sugar (since most sugar gets converted to alcohol via yeast).
Most red wines have relatively high alcohol.
I'm struggling to think of a non-fortified (port is an obvious fortified choice) red wine that is sweet - amarone perhaps.

Learn to tell the difference between a "fruity" wine (e.g a big fat Australian shiraz) and a genuinely sweet wine.

Cheers,
Steve
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  #17  
Old 01-10-2019, 05:02 AM
Nymuso Nymuso is offline
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Dry red for me, even with chicken or pork.

Whites, to me. are battery acid and sweets are, well, too sweet. No roses or sparklies either, and an expensive bottle is a total waste of money on me.
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  #18  
Old 01-10-2019, 05:23 AM
Daniel Grenier Daniel Grenier is offline
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Be careful out there. Wine is a demanding and very expensive mistress. Like the OP, my wife and I got into wine in our early 30s. We're mid 60s now and we have spent well in excess of $150K during our love affair with the liquid gold. But no more. Now that we are retired (read much, much less income), we spend next to nothing on wine (and we're ok with that).

Anyway, California Cabs, French Pinot Noir, and Italian Amarones & Barolos as well as Canadian Ice Wine were my favs. Never cared for Malbec, Beaujolais, Chianti and 1/2 the whites.
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  #19  
Old 01-10-2019, 05:47 AM
Fogducker Fogducker is offline
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The first lesson is to learn in fine wine appreciation, is how to hold the bottle!
"Right in the middle of the large diameter"---so it doesn't slip out of the brown bag!

Fog
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  #20  
Old 01-10-2019, 07:56 AM
Neil K Walk Neil K Walk is offline
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Careful: there's a fine line between connoisseur and alcoholic. Having tagged along with a troupe of cork sniffers for many years I feel like my brief stint as a drunken sailor was a pious existence in comparison.

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Originally Posted by buddyhu View Post
My wife and I don't drink a lot of wine, but we appreciate a good bottle from time to time. Some reds, but mostly whites.

Over the years, we have found that wines from Europe are easier for us to metabolize. Don't know if that is because of the soils, or because of specifics of their vinification process ( I have read that US makers are more likely to introduce things to manipulate the finished taste of the wine). We haven't explored Australian wines very much, nor South American wines...though we have enjoyed some that have been recommended at restaurants (my wife is really warming up Argentinian Malbecs).

At this point, we mostly drink Italian white wines (Grechetto, Arneis, Gavi dei gavi, some Pinot Grigio), some French wines (pricey!), and a smattering of Spanish, Greek, Austrian, and German wines.
Good to know. I find that certain wines "tear me up as well" - particularly "fun" whites like rieslings. The morning after downing an entire bottle is ANYTHING but fun. Now I tend to gravitate toward craft beers, particularly porters and stouts - and I like to stick to one or two pours. When it comes to wines, I like a full-bodied red - purely for medicinal purposes.

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Originally Posted by Daniel Grenier View Post
Be careful out there. Wine is a demanding and very expensive mistress. Like the OP, my wife and I got into wine in our early 30s. We're mid 60s now and we have spent well in excess of $150K during our love affair with the liquid gold. But no more. Now that we are retired (read much, much less income), we spend next to nothing on wine (and we're ok with that).

Anyway, California Cabs, French Pinot Noir, and Italian Amarones & Barolos as well as Canadian Ice Wine were my favs. Never cared for Malbec, Beaujolais, Chianti and 1/2 the whites.
I can commiserate and hope that I can live to my 60s at this pace. My wife is the expert and has gone up to Niagara on the Lake for over 15 years with friends every harvest season. She's spent a good chunk of change over the years. Now her wine collection competes for space with my guitar collection in the basement. I enjoy tagging along but took a break for family reasons, coming back to it just in the last couple of years. It's fun because we continually book rooms at the Pillar and Post, a quaint little inn several blocks off Queen Street but it's getting very expensive up there and with the addition of "Taste the Season" festival each November the pace has picked up considerably.

During our last trip a friend lent my wife a copy of "Cork Dorks." Both thoroughly enjoyed it and it's sitting on my wife's night stand, begging me to pick it up so that I can comprehend what's so d@mn funny. I thought it was just too much wine. Betty Ford, here we come!

PS: I'm sad that the Healdsburg guitar show is no more. My wife says I'm addicted to guitars but she's a fun drunk and Napa isn't that far away.
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  #21  
Old 01-10-2019, 02:32 PM
TRose TRose is offline
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Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
I used to really enjoy wine.



Different wines at different times of the year of course, but since my throat cancer treatment, it doesn't taste the same and it dries out my mouth too much.



Same with real ale - just not the same. I'm almost t-total now.



I will have a glass occasionally, like when we have avocado and taramasalata.


Same situation here, Mr Silly Moustache. I’ve now found dry, tannin heavy wines unsavory. Though I rarely drink after treatment, I found the wines described as “More fruit forward” to better suit my palette- think a Rhône wine or ,even better, a Ripassa.
Of course, the older Tawny Ports might do the trick.
All my best,
Tom
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  #22  
Old 01-10-2019, 04:07 PM
Shades of Blue Shades of Blue is offline
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Wow, thanks for the responses guys. My plan at the moment is to just keep buying and trying one bottle of red wine per weekly grocery run. I have yet to find one that I am crazy about (other than the $40 bottle of Prisoner), but I'm hopefully I can find something wonderful for under $20 lol.
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  #23  
Old 01-10-2019, 04:32 PM
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Pura Vida Pura Vida is offline
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As you get more interested in wine you might find you taste drift more towards a dry wine. A good South African Chenin Blanc is one of my favourites.

Friends of mine are very keen on the wine they serve in their restaurant. In 2006 they asked me to make a 300+ bottle wine tower for their refurbishment. Whilst I only enjoy an occasional glass wine these days I did research the stuff with respect to storage etc and came across some interesting facts: -

To prevent a sparkling wine from bubbling up and out of the glass, pour a small amount in first and allow to settle, then add the remainder and it will not bubble as much.

All wines are essentially white. Red wines are fermented with the grape skins which extracts the colour from the skins. White wines are fermented without the skins so no colour is exchanged. If the wine is fermented partially with the skins you get a nice Rose wine which still contains the goodness associated with a red wine but without the weight.

A young wine has an aroma while a more mature wine has a ‘bouquet.’
‘Drinking to one’s health’ originates from ancient Greece where the host would take the first sip of wine to assure his guests the wine was not poisoned.

The Romans would float toasted bread in a glass of wine to absorb an undesirable taste or to neutralise acidity.

Women tend to make better wine tasters as they have a better sense of smell than men. You could say they are better at it because they smell better.

Allegedly, moderate, regular wine drinking can reduce the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and gum disease.

To taste a wine, hold it in the mouth for a moment or two and then either swallow it or, spit it out (into a suitable receptacle), the better the wine, the longer the aftertaste.

Wine grapes account for more acres planted in the world than any other fruit crop.

The Romans used to mix lead with wine to preserve it and to give it a sweet taste. It’s no wonder lead poisoning aided their decline.

A simple guide to choosing wine with your meal: -
• Heavy food, heavy wine – light food, light wine.
• Red meat, red wine – white meat or fish, white wine.
• Sweet food, sweet wine – savoury food, dry wine,
So (depending upon your choice of food) : –
• Start with a light wine and increase in weight with the different courses,
• Start light (in colour) and get darker,
• Start with young wine and get older,
• Start dry and get sweeter.

Vintage or Non-vintage? – Vintage wine tends to be of grapes that are sourced from a single year’s harvest whilst non-vintage wines are a blend of wines from two or more years. The vintage year is the year the wine was bottled and not necessarily the year the grapes were harvested.

If the Sommelier hands you the cork don’t smell it – it won’t reveal any secrets from the bottle. Look instead at the cork – the cork from a quality wine will usually have information such as the date on it. Also inspect it for drying, cracking or breaks.

A natural corked bottle should be stored lying on its side to keep the cork wet and so prevent it from drying, shrinking and letting in air. If an artificial cork is used or a screw cap it can be stored upright.

Red wine represents 55% of restaurant wine sales.

But the most important fact about wine is that you don’t have to understand it to enjoy it.
Lots of great info here. I tend to immerse myself into things with both feet, and prior to getting back into guitars a few years ago, I spent the last decade really digging into the wine industry. I was fortunate enough to make friends with a few talented Napa winemakers and others in the business and learned a lot about what it takes to make some world class wine. In fact, I often say that making wine is a lot like making an acoustic guitar... it's a combination of art and science.

The only change above would be to start with older wine and move to younger wines b/c the younger wines can overpower your taste of the older vintages. At an Older Vintages event in Napa, as well as any vintage tastings, they always start light to dark and/or older to younger.

As far as learning, you're on the right path. Try different wines and see what pairs well with you and/or certain foods (like trying new guitar strings). Also, pay attention to the region that the wine is made and perhaps look for similar wines. For example, your Prisoner wine comes from St. Helena, CA, and there are many great wineries from the St. Helena / Rutherford areas (it's one of my favorite regions, and I've belonged to at least a dozen wineries there).

Good luck and happy tasting. Cheers!
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  #24  
Old 01-11-2019, 07:16 AM
J Patrick J Patrick is offline
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...I'll take a nice fat Napa or Paso Robles Cab over anything else....love the big buttery Sonoma Chards.....our Pinot Noirs here in Oregon are quite quaffable...some great stuff coming out of Washingtons Columbia River basin......Italian Nebbiolos are my favorite imports...for domestic bubbles I love Argyle produced here in Oregon....give me the imported Roederer for special occasions....and no not all vineyards are treated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides although that is the industry standard...
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  #25  
Old 01-11-2019, 11:17 AM
Earl49 Earl49 is offline
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I never liked wine until we moved to Sonoma County years ago. Then wine tasting trips were a common weekend activity, especially when friends were visiting. We eventually learned to enjoy wines that would have tasted like vinegar at first, as the palate gets educated. And we found the small local wineries where you could get decent wines for $10 a bottle, or less. I don't drink at all anymore, but that is driven more by conflicts with my meds than anything else.

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Be careful out there. Wine is a demanding and very expensive mistress.
Kinda makes GAS and multiple guitars pale by comparison. An educated palate (much like a golden ear) is an expensive thing.
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  #26  
Old 01-11-2019, 11:39 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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We're big wine drinkers in my house. And always on the quest for a great under $10 bottle...I don't consider myself super knowledgable, but I have tried a lot of wine, and I keep track of what I enjoy.

I highly reccomend downloading the Vivino app. It's a great way not only to get reviews on wine right as you're in the store, but it also helps you keep track of what you've tried (and liked or not)

Currently, here's a few easy to find and inexpensive bottles we've really liked.

La Vielle Firme (super inexpensive french red, great with dinner or just sipping. Rather light, maybe not for like a big steak dinner, but holds up to pretty much anything else)

Louis Jadot Beajoulais (another lightish but dry French red)

"Josh" Cabernet Sauvignon ( I think our favorite inexpensive cab)
"Josh" also makes a great Rose. All Rose's are NOT WHITE ZINFANDEL!!!

"Butter" Chardonnay (A good white for those who don't think they like whites)

Wente "Morning Fog" Chardonnay (another great inexpensive Chard)

And if you're looking for a NOT cheap special bottle, The Brunello de Montalcno (2004) is a wonderful Tuscan red that just...it's just perfect. And it's still not ridiculously expensive ($50-$60)
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  #27  
Old 01-11-2019, 01:17 PM
Shades of Blue Shades of Blue is offline
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I highly reccomend downloading the Vivino app. It's a great way not only to get reviews on wine right as you're in the store, but it also helps you keep track of what you've tried (and liked or not)
Oh my, thank you SO much for that! I can't tell you how many times I've spent 20 minutes just standing and trying to gather info on my phone. Life saver content above!
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  #28  
Old 01-14-2019, 08:06 AM
Shades of Blue Shades of Blue is offline
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I had a very productive weekend in my wine search lol.

I tried a bottle of Buck Shack Red, and it was pretty good. I did happen to get a couple bottle of Murphy-Goode Pino Noir and I really enjoyed it! I may have found my go-to cheap wine.

I still want to try Apothic Red because I have a lot of people telling me it is great for $9, and isn't that the goal? To find the cheapest wine you like?
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  #29  
Old 01-14-2019, 08:13 AM
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My daughter and son in law actually got my wife and I into table wine.
They experiment a lot but almost always in Red
Dont know if you like a Cabernet Sauvignon as it is a dry but I think the fruitiness of some Cabs leaves a somewhat sweeter impression on the palate .
My wife and I now are fans of Original Dark Horse- Cab, as our go to table fare (for just that reason, dry but does not not bite ) . Give it a try as it is commonly sub $10
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Last edited by KevWind; 01-14-2019 at 08:20 AM.
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  #30  
Old 01-14-2019, 08:58 AM
Shades of Blue Shades of Blue is offline
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Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
My daughter and son in law actually got my wife and I into table wine.
They experiment a lot but almost always in Red
Dont know if you like a Cabernet Sauvignon as it is a dry but I think the fruitiness of some Cabs leaves a somewhat sweeter impression on the palate .
My wife and I now are fans of Original Dark Horse- Cab, as our go to table fare (for just that reason, dry but does not not bite ) . Give it a try as it is commonly sub $10
I tried Dark Horse a long time ago. It was good, but don't remember that much about it. I'll try some more soon. I think that Cabs to me are generally dry and I think I do prefer a sweeter wine. I tend to really like most Pinot.
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