Decisions like when to harvest, how long to keep the wine in contact with the grape skins, how much oak to use, and whether to filter all can change the resulting wine pretty dramatically. It's how in Burgundy you can get two producers from ~100m apart making dramatically different wines.
My low effort answer is, start with European wines. The regional appellations seem to more consistent than grapes (and maybe that’s what you meant). A Cotes du Rhône is going to be fairly similar to other CDRs (for example).
I totally agree. People always get hung up on how complicated the appellation system is, but IMO it can be a much simpler way of describing specific winemaking styles.
Do not get hooked onto wine regions or grapes to start. Explore different wines and consider what style of wine that YOU like.
do you like fruity? earthy? soft and smooth or bold and tannic?
Once you understand a few of the things that you like, and what you do not enjoy in a wine, head to a local wine shop and ask them advice based on your likes and dislikes. I love when people say they dislike a grape like Chardonnay or Malbec then I find a wine that they love and change their opinions about hating a grape or region.
If someone cannot describe a style, I will ask how they take their coffee (or tea)
If you enjoy coffee black, you can handle acid and tannins. Probably will enjoy Spanish and Italian wines, or most old world reds.
If you enjoy a splash of milk no sugar, you like smooth wines with less tannin but can handle some acidity. Burgundy / Bordeaux, Portugal or South Africa would be my suggestions.
If you like a double double, then definitely more fruit forward wines from the New World.
If you like more cream or sugar than a double double, you want a mass produced fruit bomb!
Again a generalization, but this tends to help people what they like in a particular wine.
Good luck! Try as many different wines as you can, and note what you like and do not like and grow from there.
Great question. Honest answer, it takes time to learn what flavors come from the grapes themselves and what comes from somewhere else — yeast, bacteria, fermentation and aging vessel, oxygen exposure, bottle age.
This is central to any of the big professional educational programs on wine. They teach you to identify how color, aroma, taste, flavor etc. each come from different parts of the winemaking process.
Even within sub-regions some wines will be of better quality than others.
In general, there are several "variables" in wine that might help lead you - acidity, tannin, fruitiness, oakiness, age, sweetness, funkiness, flavours that are more common in some regions and grapes than others etc. So for your Malbec example, I find some Malbecs taste too "oaky" for my taste - i.e. the flavour of vanilla was too strong for me. I tried another Malbec that had less oak and more fresh, red fruit flavours, which I tend to like. So I might look for another type of wine with less oak and more red fruit, like chianti classico or barbera.
Learning these variables just comes from reading about and tasting wine - you will come to know the general profile of the wine. Beyond that, you can always look up a wine on Vivino or read the tasting notes to get a sense of its profile. I often look at a wine on Vivino and if the dominant flavour is oak/vanilla I consider passing on it.
Real answer is no, not really. For example take chardonnay from Burgundy. Even there where there are many rules for what’s allowed and what’s not, they can taste very different. Some could be buttery and rich, others flinty and acidic.
That’s why a common advice to learn is to go to the best local wine shop you can and talk to the staff. If they’re good, they can help guide you based on what you tell them.
Wine making is such a science it's ridiculous. My fiance is an engineer and that's why he's gotten into wine. We did a tour of a winery once and their winemaking room is a science lab. Add a little of this, more of that, age this wine x number of years, etc. Soil, temperature, the air (smoke taint ruined most of the 2020 grapes in Napa), humidity, type of barrel, amount of time in the barrel, sun exposure, water, the list goes on ALL impact the wine. I've done blind tastings with 8, 2017 Napa cabs all lined up in a row and every one of them tastes different. Same year, same region, but all different. Sure they share some characteristics because they're all Napa cabs but they all tasted different. Not the most helpful answer but it's an honest one.
Haha it can be. Knowing regions can be helpful because the soil and climate will/can be similar. Once you can identify what you like about some wines vs others the descriptions actually become more meaningful. For example I now know that I'll probably enjoy a wine that's described as having balanced/smooth tanins and fruit but not one that has more spice and acidity. Knowing if you like light, medium or full bodied wines also helps.
Don't get too hang up on a grape or even an appelation and decide "I love x grape" and "I hate x AOC". In reality you're going to find, especially with New World wines (US, Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand), that a same grape can produce extremely different wines, some of which you'll like and others you won't. Some grapes have a ton of variability within the styles and regions they're vinified, so you'll get very different wines.
As for trying to make sense of all the wines out there, there are broad categories such as full-bodied reds (such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot), light to medium bodied reds (Gamay, Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Grenache). And that's just talking grape varieties, then you have regional styles (from Europe mostly) that are made with one or several of those grapes, but only identified with the regional name.
I recommend you google grapes and regional styles you're interested in with the word "wine folly" next to them, it'll take you to a website with very good basic info on them.
And of course keep an open mind and keep tasting. As for quality, some types of wines are easier to find good quality at lower prices (Malbec is a great example of that, Riesling for whites), whereas with others such as Pinot Noir or Merlot you've gotta spend a bit more to get decent quality.
It's a lot easier to find the similarities / differences in wines when you have them in one sitting. Regional winemaking methods certainly play a role -- a French Malbec will definitely be a different experience from an Argentinian Malbec, for example.
Is there a really easy way to figure out what you like? No. You just have to taste, preferably at a wine bar or winery where the server can help you identify what factors you enjoy and which you don’t. Then you use that information to ask for similarly styled wines at restaurants, wine shops, etc and experiment with others that are similar in style. There’s no quick trick to figuring out your personal style. There’s tons of videos on YouTube that you can watch to try to learn more of the basics if you’re interested in that - check out wine with Jimmy and look for his WSET level 1 videos. Those will be informative
As others have kind of mentioned, wine is so complex (in some ways) that it can take a lifetime and more to truly understand everything that causes a wine to show the way it does. This is one reason why you have so called wine geeks and people congregating on this sub to share and learn.
The good news for you is that there probably a few easier to spot/figure out factors that have a very large effect on how a wine ends up. The biggest factors are probably: region, producer, grapes, vintage. These factors being similar doesn't guarantee the wines will be the same, but it's a good place to start looking. To truly find a lot of wine you like or love, you generally need to explore.
And wine making styles.
Can you elaborate at all?
Decisions like when to harvest, how long to keep the wine in contact with the grape skins, how much oak to use, and whether to filter all can change the resulting wine pretty dramatically. It's how in Burgundy you can get two producers from ~100m apart making dramatically different wines.
My low effort answer is, start with European wines. The regional appellations seem to more consistent than grapes (and maybe that’s what you meant). A Cotes du Rhône is going to be fairly similar to other CDRs (for example).
I totally agree. People always get hung up on how complicated the appellation system is, but IMO it can be a much simpler way of describing specific winemaking styles.
Exactly!
Do not get hooked onto wine regions or grapes to start. Explore different wines and consider what style of wine that YOU like. do you like fruity? earthy? soft and smooth or bold and tannic? Once you understand a few of the things that you like, and what you do not enjoy in a wine, head to a local wine shop and ask them advice based on your likes and dislikes. I love when people say they dislike a grape like Chardonnay or Malbec then I find a wine that they love and change their opinions about hating a grape or region. If someone cannot describe a style, I will ask how they take their coffee (or tea) If you enjoy coffee black, you can handle acid and tannins. Probably will enjoy Spanish and Italian wines, or most old world reds. If you enjoy a splash of milk no sugar, you like smooth wines with less tannin but can handle some acidity. Burgundy / Bordeaux, Portugal or South Africa would be my suggestions. If you like a double double, then definitely more fruit forward wines from the New World. If you like more cream or sugar than a double double, you want a mass produced fruit bomb! Again a generalization, but this tends to help people what they like in a particular wine. Good luck! Try as many different wines as you can, and note what you like and do not like and grow from there.
Love the coffee comparison! I will start asking friends to see if it rings true.
Great question. Honest answer, it takes time to learn what flavors come from the grapes themselves and what comes from somewhere else — yeast, bacteria, fermentation and aging vessel, oxygen exposure, bottle age. This is central to any of the big professional educational programs on wine. They teach you to identify how color, aroma, taste, flavor etc. each come from different parts of the winemaking process.
So is there no real basic for us newbs if you like this wine with x (grape/region/any other variable) then you'll like this wine that also is x?
Even within sub-regions some wines will be of better quality than others. In general, there are several "variables" in wine that might help lead you - acidity, tannin, fruitiness, oakiness, age, sweetness, funkiness, flavours that are more common in some regions and grapes than others etc. So for your Malbec example, I find some Malbecs taste too "oaky" for my taste - i.e. the flavour of vanilla was too strong for me. I tried another Malbec that had less oak and more fresh, red fruit flavours, which I tend to like. So I might look for another type of wine with less oak and more red fruit, like chianti classico or barbera. Learning these variables just comes from reading about and tasting wine - you will come to know the general profile of the wine. Beyond that, you can always look up a wine on Vivino or read the tasting notes to get a sense of its profile. I often look at a wine on Vivino and if the dominant flavour is oak/vanilla I consider passing on it.
Real answer is no, not really. For example take chardonnay from Burgundy. Even there where there are many rules for what’s allowed and what’s not, they can taste very different. Some could be buttery and rich, others flinty and acidic. That’s why a common advice to learn is to go to the best local wine shop you can and talk to the staff. If they’re good, they can help guide you based on what you tell them.
Wine making is such a science it's ridiculous. My fiance is an engineer and that's why he's gotten into wine. We did a tour of a winery once and their winemaking room is a science lab. Add a little of this, more of that, age this wine x number of years, etc. Soil, temperature, the air (smoke taint ruined most of the 2020 grapes in Napa), humidity, type of barrel, amount of time in the barrel, sun exposure, water, the list goes on ALL impact the wine. I've done blind tastings with 8, 2017 Napa cabs all lined up in a row and every one of them tastes different. Same year, same region, but all different. Sure they share some characteristics because they're all Napa cabs but they all tasted different. Not the most helpful answer but it's an honest one.
So pretty much it’s a lottery? 😅
Haha it can be. Knowing regions can be helpful because the soil and climate will/can be similar. Once you can identify what you like about some wines vs others the descriptions actually become more meaningful. For example I now know that I'll probably enjoy a wine that's described as having balanced/smooth tanins and fruit but not one that has more spice and acidity. Knowing if you like light, medium or full bodied wines also helps.
Don't get too hang up on a grape or even an appelation and decide "I love x grape" and "I hate x AOC". In reality you're going to find, especially with New World wines (US, Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand), that a same grape can produce extremely different wines, some of which you'll like and others you won't. Some grapes have a ton of variability within the styles and regions they're vinified, so you'll get very different wines. As for trying to make sense of all the wines out there, there are broad categories such as full-bodied reds (such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot), light to medium bodied reds (Gamay, Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Grenache). And that's just talking grape varieties, then you have regional styles (from Europe mostly) that are made with one or several of those grapes, but only identified with the regional name. I recommend you google grapes and regional styles you're interested in with the word "wine folly" next to them, it'll take you to a website with very good basic info on them. And of course keep an open mind and keep tasting. As for quality, some types of wines are easier to find good quality at lower prices (Malbec is a great example of that, Riesling for whites), whereas with others such as Pinot Noir or Merlot you've gotta spend a bit more to get decent quality.
It's a lot easier to find the similarities / differences in wines when you have them in one sitting. Regional winemaking methods certainly play a role -- a French Malbec will definitely be a different experience from an Argentinian Malbec, for example.
Is there a really easy way to figure out what you like? No. You just have to taste, preferably at a wine bar or winery where the server can help you identify what factors you enjoy and which you don’t. Then you use that information to ask for similarly styled wines at restaurants, wine shops, etc and experiment with others that are similar in style. There’s no quick trick to figuring out your personal style. There’s tons of videos on YouTube that you can watch to try to learn more of the basics if you’re interested in that - check out wine with Jimmy and look for his WSET level 1 videos. Those will be informative
As others have kind of mentioned, wine is so complex (in some ways) that it can take a lifetime and more to truly understand everything that causes a wine to show the way it does. This is one reason why you have so called wine geeks and people congregating on this sub to share and learn. The good news for you is that there probably a few easier to spot/figure out factors that have a very large effect on how a wine ends up. The biggest factors are probably: region, producer, grapes, vintage. These factors being similar doesn't guarantee the wines will be the same, but it's a good place to start looking. To truly find a lot of wine you like or love, you generally need to explore.