Myths and Facts on How to Select a Good Wine

Article by Daniel Manu on October - 19 - 2011

How to select a good wine practically boils down to your personal taste. Wine selecting can be done by meticulously going through every aspect of the wine types in question, starting from alcohol and sugar content all the way to the color it has in the glass.

But that’s not necessarily an efficient way to select wine. How to select wine is really much more simple. First of all think about the occasion you are buying the wine for. At a romantic dinner a Cabernet Sauvignon is suitable, depending on the food, but at a celebration party you won’t want to drink Port since it’s very sweet and regarded more as a dessert wine yet every party should have some Champagne.

Deciding what types of wine you want is fairly straight-forward. First you choose between red wine, white or sparkling wine or a combination of those. There are other wine types such as fortified wines, ice wines, rose and more. In general you are going to match food and wine rather than serve them by themselves.

If you’re going to throw a party then consider how will the food be and what wine will pair well. Tips on how to pair food and wine revolve around the weight, acidity and taste. Red wines are typically more meaty and robust than white wines, however aged white wines like oaked Chardonnay can stand with very strong foods.

You are either pairing food and wine or you are going to drink it by itself. You might even throw a wine tasting party or a wine dinner party. Selecting a good wine for a wine tasting party is trickier, depending on the type of wine tasting party you’re having. Yet however picky you want to be on how you select a good wine you should still keep in mind the common myths and facts.

Myth: Serving white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat is the only way to go

This is way too simplistic for today’s standard. There are 40 year old Chardonnays that can put to shame even the heaviest Zinfandel, in terms of weight. A much better way to select a good wine is to base your pick on the weight of the meal and the texture of the wine. The more oily and saucy a dish is the stronger you want the wine to be.

Wine will feel underwhelmed if it’s too light compared to the food. This is what’s interesting about wine tasting, everything changes once you change the food you’re serving it with. Yet exotic and weird pairings can also turn out amazing. You just have to try and see what you like.

Fact: There’s no sure fire way to select a good wine

Despite what experts might have you think it’s very easy for them to make a bad choice as well. Too much depends on you. Maybe they can pick the best wine out of an array of known wines but when it comes to shooting in the dark there’s no way to know how the wine making process went, how the grapes were in that particular year. There’s just too many wine types around to keep track of every one of them.

However there are knowledgeable people, called sommeliers, that busy themselves with the subject of wine tasting, wine selecting and pairing. They are experienced and have had the chance to taste many more wines than you have. If you’re in a classy restaurant then trusting the opinion of the sommelier is a very good option. Just explain your preferences or simply let him surprise you.

Myth: Expensive wine has to be better than inexpensive wine

Not so, there are dozens of great wines at a meager $15 price tag. A soft Merlot is a good starter wine. So is a Pinot Noir. It depends on where you are, what shops have available at the time, what you’re looking to use the wine for and, last but not least, your personal preferences and the preferences of the people you’re serving the wine with.

Some wines have a DOC appellation, this is a means of atesting that the wine was created in the said wine region, so if you know something about the wine region it comes from you’re going to know something about how the wine is. Knowing a thing or two about the origins of specific wines is a much safer way of selecting a good wine. There are also other appellations that say different things about different wines.

The best red wine to drink by itself is probably a soft wine if you’re just getting started in wine tasting. These wines are called starter wines because they are not very strong and have fairly balanced traits. If you’re a wine veteran a fortified wine might be your wine of choice. Regardless of your preferences how to select a good wine is a process learned through experience.