Meeting friends or having a romantic dinner with your significant other accompanied by a good bottle of wine can make your day. While dining in a restaurant, you’ll be offered wine that pairs very well with your meal. However, at home, you must make a choice on your own. But how to choose quality wine if you aren’t a sommelier or connoisseur? To purchase vintage wine, you can either go to a vineyard or wine auctions. Today, they are available even online. Before that, you should know that wine is a bunch of flavours, consisting of many qualities. Sweetness, acidity, tannin, body, and alcohol are the crucial elements of this drink. Your choice is dependent on many factors, including your flavour preferences, but also the occasion you’re going to celebrate, labels, and the price. To make your choice simpler, here are some tips you can follow.
Start with a white or rose wine
If you’re a beginner, you can start with something simple and light, ideally a white or rose wine. It was proved by Sonoma State University in one study which showed that most people enjoy a sweet white or rose wine at the beginning of their wine experience. But of course, your taste can change over time, and later on, you can get to like more distinct flavours, like dry red wines, which aren’t usually liked by new consumers. That is because of their unique, intense aroma and sharp bitterness.
Be consistent with your other flavours
While choosing a good bottle of wine, don’t forget about your flavour preferences in other food and drinks. They’ll be an excellent indicator of your wine types. For example, if you prefer apple juice to grapefruit juice, your choice should fall on sweet white wine. Otherwise, you can reach for dry white wine.
When you enjoy the taste of strong black coffee, then wines from the Old World will undoubtedly meet your expectations. Looking for a bottle on the store shelves, you need to search for wines with French, Italian, or Spanish origins. But if you usually drink a latte, then try New World wines, which come from the United States, Australia, or South Africa.
Consider the occasion
To make a perfect choice, you should also take into consideration the occasion, whether it’s an informal social meeting with your friends or a more formal party in the office. To satisfy all your guests’ preferences can be a tall order. If you don’t pay too much attention to pairing wine with food, the best thing is to choose classics, i.e., red and white wines, and semi-sweet flavours.
If you, in turn, want to pair your wine with food, remember that white wines should be served with light dishes, such as chicken and fish, whereas red wines are a better option for heavier meals, like lamb or beef.
What you should also consider is the purpose of using wine. If you only add it to your meat, sauce, or mix it with other alcoholic beverages to prepare a cocktail, then you can pick a less expensive bottle of wine. However, if you’re planning to try wine on its own, it should be a top-end product.
Always check the label
A common mistake that people make is not reading a label, but only admiring its artistic values and pictures on it. And that’s wrong. To find more about a particular type of wine, you need to learn about the region, a variety of grapes, sweetness, acidity, tannins, and alcohol percentage used for wine production. All these qualities are always written on the back. On a description of the wine, you’ll find all associated aromas as well. These can be citrus, black cherry, apple, plum, or even chocolate. Once you determine whether you usually like such tastes, it’ll be easier for you to select the most suitable bottle of wine.
Don’t pay too much attention to the age of wine
Some people may tell you that you should also check the age of the wine. It’s a common belief that the older the wine is, the better the taste it has. However, it turns out that only some wines taste better with age. Generally, this rule concerns mostly red wines. The rest isn’t intended to be aged and should be consumed within five years of purchasing it. But if you’ll ever fluctuate between two bottles of red wine, then you can undoubtedly opt for the older one.
Try new tastes
Once you find your favourite wine, then you should make a note of its name and choose it whenever you have a special occasion. At other times, you can experiment further and try to explore new regions and tastes. You shouldn’t limit yourself to only one type of wine. That’s boring, and after some time, you’ll be fed up with its flavour. Instead, diversify your meetings with something new and exotic. Be creative and surprise your guests with your latest discoveries.
When you already know all these tips, don’t waste your time, but go out and explore this fascinating world of wines, maybe at a wine tasting at one of the nearby vineyards.
