I think one of the keys is to shop at wine stores rather than the grocery store, for one. Most wine stores (at least in my area) include tasting notes for each bottle. You can start understanding what you like and what you don't like. You'll also start to learn that $15 may not get you very far when looking for Cabernet from Napa, for instance, but that same $15 can get you a really lovely bottle from Italy, Spain, or South America.

Points really only mean something if your palate lines up with the palate of the reviewer.

I mostly ignore ratings and awards. There are so many reviewers and competitions that if you submit to enough you're bound to win something. That tells me it's probably not awful, but not much more.

In general, it's hard to tell "good" from "amazing" just from looking at the bottle. This is especially true of new world wines because there aren't as many regulations. For example, "reserve" has no legal meaning in the US or Australia so wineries can just put it on anything they want to sound fancier, while "riserva/reserva" has legal requirements for aging time in Italy and Spain. On the other hand, some old world regions have such complicated labeling regulations it can be hard for a beginner to decipher.

As others have said, it helps to go to a good wine shop. Then you can at least have a little more assurance that they're picking good stuff to sell and not just the crowd pleasers and whatever the distributor had a good deal on. And you can even start to learn the owner's preferences. The owner of the shop I go to prefers old world styles, so I know even if I buy a California wine from him, it's probably not going to be a fruit bomb.

The point system is bullshit, you can ignore it.

The real key is to find a GOOD INDEPENDENT STORE and follow their recommendations.

Start attending tastings and reading books, and soon you'll be forming your own criteria for what constitutes a good wine.

There are too many wines to give a hard and fast rule. Price, region, importer, varietal can all be taken into consideration. If you just want to get more experience with wine, I really recommend finding a wine bar that serves flights (usually 4-5 wines for $15-20) or wine by the glass or half glass. That way you can try and compare a bunch of different wines in the most economical way. Don’t worry about “beginner” wines. Just dive in and find what you like!

Points are subjective and you'll rarely find two critics agreeing on a score.

Everybody has a different interpretation of "good". For some it's a $500 dollar bottle of Grand Cru Burgundy, while others will happily drink a $7 bottle of Yellow Tail.

For me a good wine is one that expresses terroir and is proportionately balanced, (fruit/acid/alcohol). This can tell me a little bit about where it came from, the weather of the season the fruit was harvested and the hands that tended it in the winery.

These tend to be wineries with a smaller crush and who can pay finer attention to detail and command a premium to the industrial wines you'll find in the supermarket.

If you're interested in learning more about wine I can recommend Madeline Puckette's Wine Folly and Jancis Robinson's 24hr Wine Expert as excellent starting points to deciphering what's in a bottle by reading a label.

>"Every school, every religion must start by setting down an agreed upon vocabulary. There can only be obscurity, misunderstanding and conflict without this."

-- Salvador Dali

Go read Wine Simple and Wine Folly. They will give you a good base of knowledge.

I've been drinking wine for a while and looking to get into wine education, so I jumped into WSET2.

That poster about French Oak is... not my kind of wine enthusiast. I'm quickly learning that wine culture is not a monolith. Kinda like all of the fans of your favorite sports team aren't buddies

Winefolly is an excellent first place to start

LOL - ok - that's a good wake-up call that a lot of the stuff we talk about assumes a lot of knowledge on behalf of the reader...

There are plenty of resources on YouTube (disclosure: we have a channel ourselves) - but there's a heap of great creators that you can watch/listen to - and learn heaps!

Wine knowledge is just like any other form of knowledge, it comes from a multitude of sources and is cultivated over time, reinforced through experience and often regurgitated to a poor unwilling family member.

The only advice I can offer is based on my own journey. I started with Wine Folly Magnum Edition, then got wine bible. I relentlessly googled things I didn’t understand and started to write down my notes etc. I watched YouTube channels, went to tastings and wineries. You just gotta get stuck into it.

I knew I had started to gain an understanding when I felt confident about arguing with people online about rudimentary wine things

Adventures on the Wine Route by Kermit Lynch

Jancis Robinson's Wine Course: A Guide to the World of Wine

I follow the Tablas Creek blog and had had more that one conversation with the owner Jason Hass.

An extensive day of winemaking in person with Fred Brander in Santa Ynez.

The biography of Susan Sokol Blosser.

A History of Wine in America, Volume 1: From the Beginnings to Prohibition A History of Wine in America, Volume 1: From the Beginnings to Prohibition Paperback – September 17, 2007 by Thomas Pinney 

The New California Wine: A Guide to the Producers and Wines Behind a Revolution in Taste The New California Wine: A Guide to the Producers and Wines Behind a Revolution in Taste Hardcover – November 5, 2013 by Jon Bonné 

The Wines of Burgundy The Wines of Burgundy Hardcover – Illustrated, May 12, 2008

by Clive Coates M. W.

Viti & Winemaking @ Uni. 8 Years in high end hospo in Sommelier roles. 12 international vintages. WSET Level 1-4. Stage 1 MW

Still learning every day

I really like the Lynch, the Rosenthal, and the Therise book. I think they are called Adentures on the wine route, Reflections of a wine merchant, and Reading between the wines. Wine guide books and compendiums are usually boring. Some of the Alice Fiering books are great too... The ones that arent just natural wine guides. The Jane Lopez book is fun too. Aside from tasting and surfing the web, that's all you got.

Books, I did Wine Folly & Kevin Zraly's Windows of the World. A few region specific books. However, most of it just accumulated naturally from reading here, the Internet at large, trying different wines, comparing notes to those of others, etc. It takes time! I plan to do WSET 2 soon to see how much I've learned.

Great courses every day guide to wine with Jennifer Simonetti Bryant. It’s a more valuable class if you drink but you’d get a lot from it regardless

Is it actually wine in there or just a filler? :D

The red is Hebrew script writing. It says ashbel in Hebrew

Finally, placeholder juice

Sounds petty fancy to me! It must be good!

I feel like that's a student project. Or someone made their own label and placed it onto another brands bottle. The bubbling looks like it's not professionally done, nor the design. Reverse image search brought up others but those aren't making any sense either lol.

I am still very much a beginner but this is how I started:

• looked up a beginners course at the nearest college (all my fellow classmates were also doing it as a hobby after work type of thing so i didn’t feel out of place) I learned the most here in terms of intro to grapes, regions etc
• buy a book: wine folly or the bible by Jancis - very handy guide
• wine store - I recently started picking a grape and key regions in the world then a wine from that region. For example Pinot noir - i would get a bottle from France, New Zealand, Oregon, Canada (represent) and compare all - maybe not the best method but it has helped me a lot in terms of notes
• every time my partner and I open a bottle we say out loud our tasting notes - makes me realize if i didn’t pick up on something
• join a wine club - after doing the above, you would have enough of a knowledge to appreciate the wines provided

I’m only at this point in my wine education but I have enjoyed every bit of learning so far! Hope this helps!

this sucks with covid because tastings are pretty much not happening but a local wine shop is your best bet. Buy some bottles, talk to the staff and tell them what you like and dont like. Hopefully they have tastings or be willing to pour tastes for you. Outside of that WSET is great and has a range of courses from beginner level 1 to diploma program which basically is a college degree

Drink!

Seriously though, ask for a recommendation at the (ideally a wine) store on your budget. Everyone starts out somewhere. You'll taste some rotters, you'll find some stars. It's all part of the fun of it. You don't have to do it all in a short space of time though, you've got until now until your final day to enjoy the journey.

Do you have Total Wine in your area? Mine does wine tasting like every week and u can sign up and go there. And it's free.

That being said, Costco has decent wine starting at $5.99 bottle so for $20, u can walk out with 2-3 different variants. If u like sweet wine, get a moscato, then throw in a sauvignon blank (white) and some sorta sparking Rose wine. Then see what u prefer and go from there.

My wine is a red wine drinker and I prefer white.

Here's a list of styles of wine/appelations to look for that I think can be fun for your journey:

Vinho Verde (white/rosé)

Barbera d'Alba/Barbera d'Asti/Barbera di Montferatto (red)

Gavi (white)

Côtes du Rhône (red/white/rosé)

Chinon (red/white/rosé)

Austrian Grüner Veltliner (white)

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (red)

Mosel Riesling (white)

Rioja (red/white)

Oregon Pinot Noir (red)

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (white)

The ideal, in my opinion, is to find a shop that vibes with you and get recommendations within these categories that fit your budget. There are SO many more categories that are amazing, but many will vary dramatically in quality or are pricey, making them difficult to traverse when you don't know specifically what you're looking for. For those who might object that this list seems to favor old world wines, I just think that these categories have a little more cohesion to give a beginner an idea of what they're all about (much new world wine, though often amazing, is much more heavily dependent on the maker, rather than the appelation). I've also certainly missed some good categories for wine acolytes.

Check out Eric Asimov's How to Love Wine, as well as a wine reference book (my favorite is The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson) to look up and read about wines that you enjoy.

And save the bottle of course. Looks like it is autographed by the winemaker.

Open it at the narrow end. Then pour it into your mouth. Then comment what you think it tastes like.

My Significant other has been saving this wine for some time and today we are deciding to open this evening. Do we need to do anything special for these type of wine based on year like decanting that I see people post?

Looking to experience it the best way we can. Thanks so much!

Fun thread, thanks for posting! Generally agree with all of the replies.

Couple things I’d add, that I don’t think have been mentioned yet on the thread, but which might enhance your appreciation and enjoyment of the wine:

Chateau La Cabanne is one of the older estates in Pomerol being founded and planted to vine in the mid-18th Century. The estate’s vineyards are just about a stone throw’s away from Chateau Trotanoy, who historically and to this day, is regarded as one of the best producers. Though the 2014 vintage was not as critically acclaimed as say, the 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2005, was a lovely vintage producing highly aromatic wines of balance and freshness. What they lack in opulence, concentration and structure, they make up for with charm and their drink ability in the early to medium term of their life in the botte.

Don’t suspect it’ll need to be decanted, but please pay careful attention to the serving temp as suggested by others.

Enjoy and please share your tasting notes and experience! What a treat!

That wine is almost entirely Merlot and probably fine to pour straight out of the bottle.

My suggestion: pour a small amount into the largest red wine glass you have, smell it, swirl it, then smell it again and sip it. If you find the tannins overwhelming (too bitter and/or mouth-drying for your taste), then you can pour it into a decanter and drink it slowly, letting it develop. But I honestly think it’ll taste fine without decanting.

1. Those are descriptors associated with Sauvignon Blanc and related varieties. Albariño is more of a peach leaf kind of green.
2. Millerandage is caused by poor flowering, leads to grape bunches with a mix of large and tiny berries.
3. Menetou-Salon is an AOC near Sancerre in the Central Loire, also produces wines from Sauvignon Blanc that have a significant stylistic overlap with Sancerre.

1: The tasters think it’s a NZ-style Sauvignon blanc. It’s not.

2: millerandage is when grapes develop in wildly different sizes in a bunch.

3: Menetou-Salon is basically petit-Sancerre (in terms of style)

Alvarinho > Albariño

https://www.falstaff.com/en/news/why-sauvignon-blanc-has-intriguing-flavours

Pyrazines are associated with Bordeaux varietals.  Cab Sauvignon, cab franc, merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, etc.  

started large, my feeling about kits: it's ok (ish) for white juice, but to make reds, you have to have freshly hand harvested vinifera winegrapes

Nope. Stumbled into a home wine making judging event by accident and could not believe just how good some of the wines were. Bought a starter kit from a vendor at that event and bough the same kit that took Gold at that event.

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Still have one bottle of that Merlot left. I assume it is undrinkable after 15 or so years, but that s not why I kept it.

I think more folks should understand that you don't have to plant your grapes and grow a vineyard. Just go to your local farmers market and buy something fresh. Grapes, strawberries, watermelon, apples.

The importance of cleaning, sanitation and sterilization was among the first things I was taught at school. It would be a good topic.

Another nice topic would be the importance of tasting and smelling wine during all stages of production. It kinda weirds me out when people make posts in here with a crappy picture of their carboy asking wats wrong, and they haven't even tasted it yet.

It would be like somebody taking a picture of their car because the engine light is on and asking what's wrong.

Honestly, didn’t have many. Started with a kit and followed the directions. The one thing I questioned during that first wine was how to top up after racking.

It was after my first couple of batches that I started having more questions and reading deeper into the hobby.

So I always push newbies to do a kit as their first wine. Once you can do the process once you can branch out. But some of my best judged wines were kit wines.

Here are some random thoughts -

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You could either find a type of wine you like - probably start with Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel for reds, and if you like it, then try a bunch of different ones, maybe even from different regions. I would probably start in the $10-$20, ask the person in the wine shop for advice. If you're pairing it with food then definitely ask for advice or google it.

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For white wine probably Chardonnay is a good place to start. I'd try a few California chards with oak, and a few unoaked / Burgundy / Chablis styles and see which style you like better.

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Rieslings are also pretty accessible and super delicious.

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If you like hard liquor I've found gewürztraminer to be closer to a mix drink - lychee / fruity smell and high alcohol content, yet not sweet...more dry, almost like drinking a martini.

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Rose is great for just pure enjoyment and refreshment, it's usually easy to drink, tends to go well with a lot of things. Good for summertime / grilling / outdoors. Usually pretty inexpensive.

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You could also try a bunch of different wine, perhaps from the same estate / producer, and slowly get to know the different types of wine. Like have a party and try a cab, merlot, pinot noir, zinfandel, sangiovese. For whites chard, suav blanc, pinto grigio, riesling.

Also a beer drinker but recently drinking more wine. I enjoy drinking Pinot noir, Cabernet Sauvignon as well as Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. Other varietals are fun to try as well but typically find myself buying those.

If you have a total wine nearby I'd recommend dropping by and doing tastings in the store. They have the basically for free and it's a great way to try different types from a variety of price points. Total wine is awesome too - prices are fantastic.

I would go to a wine bar and try several smaller pours. Paired with with appropriate food.

I'd advise you to go to a wine store (in The Netherlands I'd say a supermarket since most sell somewhat decent wines these days) and just try some things, until you stuble upon a bottle that makes you say 'hey, I liked that! What grape is this, where did it come from?' and take it from there. Buy something similar the next time et cetera.

White - red - rose is personal and depending on the season too. I'm a red wine guy mostly but like a chilled white or rose in the summer.

Also: if there is a wine tasting group or something similar in the area, that might help, but some of those can be a bit snobby. I was lucky, I found a down to earth 'just drink what you like, man' group and learned a lot there.

Cheers!

Rosso di montalcino's. If you like them enough, graduate to Brunello di montalcino. Prepare to blow your tastebuds off.