Do you find that choosing wine can be a bit like a game of roulette?
You pick your bottle based on price tag and a vague memory of having drunk something similar in the past. You fill your glass and hope for the best.
Unlike beer, which, generally speaking, you can rely on to taste the same from year to year, this wine stuff just keeps bloody changing.
Harvest after harvest.
And that – depending on your perspective – is either the trouble with it, or the beauty of it.
It undoubtedly makes life interesting for winemakers and wine aficionados, but not a little tricky for you and me. Multiply grapes by regions by styles by vintages and the choices are bewildering. Though we may get to know broadly what it is we like in a wine when we taste it, we may not have the vocabulary to describe it much beyond red, white or bubbly. So we often rely on those more knowledgeable to navigate the vast cellars, taste widely and recommend. With any luck, they won’t come over all poncey in the process.
Whaddya Sayin’?