Learning About Wine w/o WS & Parker

[jddoyle]

After mostly lurking here for a couple of months and seeing the disparaging remarks made about Wine Spectator and Parker, I was wondering what you guys would suggest to people who want to get into wine but don't know where to start?

Sure there are problems with each. But books are out of date almost immediately when they come out in terms of vintages and their related reviews. Ignoring scores and going it alone by buying random bottles and seeing if you like them can get extremely expensive as well as disappointing as you grab probably as many, if not more, bad bottles as you do good without any direction.

As for other options, finding a good retailer with a good staff, using a sommelier, etc., are also wrought with problems; how is taking the suggestion of one of those different from taking a suggestion from Parker or any of the WS staff? What if you can't afford to always eat out at a resturant that has a sommelier, forget the markup in bottle price and extra tip?

I understand the mistakes that are made at both publications, and having a "Top 100" of anything is sort of ridiculous, forget the actual list, but is there a way for a beginner to learn about current wines, and the areas that produce them, that is better than WS and RP?

Jay Doyle

[Fat Guy]

JD, I want to know the answer to that question too!

But one thing I can tell you is that there's no substitute for drinking a lot of wine. Everything else you can do has to get in line behind actually tasting the stuff.

Where do you live? If you're in a big city like New York, there are a lot of opportunities for wine education. I go to tastings, sometimes several times a month, and many of them are free or cheap. There are also all kinds of wine classes and events out there. If you get into that routine, you'll be a lot better equipped not only to buy wine in stores and restaurants but also to interpret Wine Spectator, Parker, and other critical sources.

[Andre]

I understand the mistakes that are made at both publications, and having a "Top 100" of anything is sort of ridiculous, forget the actual list, but is there a way for a beginner to learn about current wines, and the areas that produce them, that is better than WS and RP?

Jay Doyle

Hi Doyle,

I don't believe in shortcuts and it seems also a great deal of the good people of this forum.

I would begin with a wine course to discover my style of wines and further develop my palate with as many wine tastings as I can.

If the retailer or sommelier are professionals, when you have the tools, you will know. As far as prices are concerned - a combination of homework and trust can easily do the job.

Questions ?

What are wine forums for ?

[redwinegulper]

I think a good place to start is Kevin Zralys' book "Windows on the World WIne Course". Yes, books go out of date, but this will give a very good foundation on regions, types of wine, and a few top producers. Courses are good. Wine tastings are super, an opportunity to compare wines. Wine bars are another place to sample a lot. Retail stores also have free wine tastings. Following the suggestions of the retails are tricky, many don't know much and are pushing what is in stock......but not all of them. SOme are very knowledgeable...now yuo need to find one that knows something AND has a similar palate to yours...we do not all like the same wines.

As Fat Guy says....drink

[Sinbad]

But one thing I can tell you is that there's no substitute for drinking a lot of wine.

I'll subscribe to that advise.

One great way to learn about wine is to actually visit the regions. Many wine regions are great tourist destinations in themself and to combine it with some wine touring/tasting/classes is a great way to spend a vacation. My favorite is Tuscany, but France (I visited Champagne and Burgundy), Australia and Napa are some of the wonderful places that I have visited and done wine tours. Took a great tour in Burgundy where the Wine region of Burgundy was explained in conjunction with some very good wine tastings with explanations. I did not become an expert on Burgundy, but I'm definitely more assertive and informed than I previously was when it comes to buying wines from the region(as well as more appreciative of the wines from the region).

Even a visit to Niagara falls and the wineries in nearby Niagara-on-the-lake can be educational. Granted, it's not one of the great wine regions of the world, but I learned quite a bit about Ice Wines when I visited.

[Fat Guy]

The one thing I'd add to that, Sinbad, is that if you're visiting a well-touristed region like Napa or Champagne you're not likely to learn very much about wine by taking the standard public tour and visiting the typically commercial tasting room. By the time you've been to your third big house in Reims you'll start to see dramatically diminishing returns in terms of wine information (of course it's still fun for the ability to learn the history of each place and to see those amazing caves). I've had my better experiences either in the less touristed regions (like Oregon) or where I've been able to make a connection (such as in Burgundy through a restaurant industry contact). Planning ahead, having an introduction, and making an appointment is the best way to get some time with the actual winemakers -- you may even get to taste some barrel samples.

[malcolmjolley]

Matt Kramer's "Making Sense of Wine" has been recently reissued and is excellent.

[Sinbad]

By the time you've been to your third big house in Reims you'll start to see dramatically diminishing returns in terms of wine information.

By the time I was visiting the third big house in Reims my ability to absorb information was dramatically disappearing.

The best tour we had at Reims was a private tour at Ruinart for me and my wife that Boyer arranged for us where they let us taste even their more expensive champagnes. After that it was getting less and less exciting to tour the caves.

I agree with your post, I think the value that one get's from visiting a region, type of tour etc depends on the type of tour/tasting etc as well as on which level of sophistication one has reached. When people start making advance appointments at individual wineries I would say that they have reached a fairly advanced level. Some prior research is useful as always when vacationing.

Edited November 13, 2003 by Sinbad (log)

[KatieLoeb]

Matt Kramer's "Making Sense of Wine" has been recently reissued and is excellent.

Malcolm beat me to this suggestion. An excellent primer in addition to the Kevin Zraly book, and I'd add Andrea Immer's Great Wine Made Simple.

Also look HERE for classes, wine dinners and tastings in your area.

And drink! The lab work is the best part

[malcolmjolley]

I also really enjoyed Jay McInerney's "Bacchus & Me" - a fun little book for beginners and up. In fact, the sort one could read while sipping something.

[jddoyle]

Thanks for the replys guys! Some great suggestions.

The book I have is Karen MacNeil's The Wine Bible which I thought was really good though I haven't made it the whole way through. I have also visited Napa for my honeymoon and lucked into some great tours at Silverado (where we had a personal tour covering everything involved from grapes to barrels to bottle and a wonderful tasting), Robert Sinskey and a fabulously informal tasting at Viader. We did stop by Stag's Leap (not the Petite Syrah one) but that was very "tourist-ey".

I live in St. Louis, MO and have been to some tastings, I guess that I need to go to some from a different retailer as I have found that the ones I went to were purely to sell stock on hand and seemed skewed to the expensive wines; the cheaper whites were warmer than the expensive whites, the expensive reds were crisp cool while the lesser reds were flabby warm.

Thanks again for the ideas guys, I try to drink as much as I can. I love Burgundy, but can't really afford much and am now looking harder at Spain.

Anyway... Thanks again.

Jay Doyle

[bleachboy]

For a beginner, I give my wholehearted approval to The Wine Avenger by Willie Gluckstern. (Disclaimer: If I did my URL right, I think eGullet will get a commission if you click on that link.)

Read the book, then find a good wine shop. Here in Nashville, TN, my favorite wine shop is Village Wines.

Make friends with the person there who knows the most about wine. In my case, it's Hoyt, the owner, and a sommelier.

Let the knowlegable person know what you like and don't like in wine. Then ask them to make you up a "mixed case". They'll likely ask you about how many red/white you want and what average price you want, and leave the rest up to them. Remember you almost always get a substantial discount (usually 10-15%) for buying by the case, even if it's a mixed case.

Then go home and drink the wines. Buy a Vacu-Vin and taste different wines with different foods. Make a point to cook at home often and always attempt your own "wine pairings" with each course if you want. You'll learn fast!

[Brad S]

There are some great books out there on wine.

For me in the past two years the best is Andre Domine' WINE

It is the most in depth book on the market today for both the novice and the wine geek.

Also,although I believe out of print, Red wine with Fish by David Rosengarten and Joshua Wesson is a fantastic guild to understanding wine and how it works with food.

[Fat Guy]

A good book is a good tool. One thing I would not suggest that you do, however, is buy all the books mentioned in this thread and read them instead of getting your ass out into the world and tasting a shitload of wine.

Tastings at the retailer level mostly suck. I can't recall often deriving educational value from "Free Wine Tasting Saturday!" type events at local wine shops. Typically, there's just some flunky standing around pouring little plastic cups of something Australian, and that's that. There are exceptions, though: once in awhile you run into somebody knowledgeable from the distributor/importer/whatever and you get to taste a range of prosecco (I stumbled across such a tasting at Mt. Carmel Wines near Arthur Avenue awhile back). But usually not.

Tonight I went to a tasting of Louis Jadot wines put on by Kobrand and iGourmet. Tickets were, I think, thirty-five bucks -- and there was a free pre-tasting for media and members of the trade. Now I don't know how they define members of the trade, but it looked to me as though they were letting anybody in. It would have been worth the money for a ticket, though. For less than the price of a bottle of Jadot's Puligny Montrachet, people were able to taste something like 20 wines across the whole Jadot range, from $12 Villages selections to a few $100+ Grand Cru bottlings. Most important, though, was the ability to taste all these wines side-by-side so as to get a basic lay of the land of both white and red Burgundy wines.

This event was scheduled to be repeated in, I think, Dallas and LA, and had already been in Miami and maybe a couple of other places. There's stuff like this going on all the time all over the place.

I don't know the St. Louis wine world at all, but it's definitely a big enough city that there must be a ton of wine activity going on all over town. What you need to do is find someone locally who really knows the scene -- there may even be someone hanging around eGullet who can plug you in. You might want to make a specific regional inquiry on the Southeast message board.

And if there turns out to be a paucity of available resources, you can always try to start a club. If you can get a group of a dozen people to assemble for periodic tastings, and you each bear the cost of one bottle, and you arrange your themes carefully, you can expose yourself to a heck of a lot of wine.

[Craig Camp]

jddoyle

You could always start at the beginning.

[budrichard]

READ, READ, READ! SHOP, SHOP, SHOP! TASTE, TASTE, TASTE! Form your OWN OPINIONS. There is no easy or fast way. I figure it took me about 5 years before I felt comfortable in my decisions. -Dick

[bobferdon]

Drink wines recommended by a good person from a good store. Give them as much information as possible about what you have had already that you liked. The best people will try to steer you where they think you are now. It does not do retailer any good to sell you the best wine and expect you to like it. Most of the people on this forum most likely try 40-50 different wines per week. Their tastes are going to be different from yours. The best way to develop a good customer is to bring them along slowly. It's called "bridging" them and it can take years to do. Some people never cross the bridge and that is fine too. As long as you are buying wine. Keep trying different wines. For god's sake please skip right over all the crappy Merlot and over oaked Chardonnay currently being served up in the states.

If you want to go by critic's suggestions a good thing to know is that no one can know all things. RP has weaknesses. Burgundy for sure. Learn who is good in a region and read them. No one person can properly cover the world.

Ad $$$ are very important to the WS so you need to think twice about what they are pushing. Look at how they push cigars! It created a whole new publication. People now think that it's OK to show up at a wines tasting smoking a cigar. Beside the stench if you smoke, you palate is compromised.

[Bill Klapp]

I say just read Florida Jim's tasting notes. At his current pace, reliable statisticians tell me that he will have tasted every wine on earth AND posted a decent note on each by the year 2011!

[dcdce]

I've been heavy into the wine scene for a few years now. I had no interest at all untill I met my wife a few years back. We went to Los Angeles to visit her brother and took a Sunday drive through Temecula and stopped at about seven wineries. I had so much fun that I bought a bunch. A few months later we went to Paris. Drinking wine is unavoidable in France and I quickly became obsessed in learning as much as I could about wine. I started reading "Wine for Dummies," followed by "French Wine for Dummies," followed by "Italian Wine for Dummies," followed by "Windows on the World Wine Course." I attended wine tastings and wine dinners. I travelled back to Europe and went through Burgandy and Tuscany.

All I can say is that through all of this, I am still a novice. There is much to learn every day. My palate has developed considerably, but there is so much more to learn.