for 25 bucks?
Places like Costco can offer good wines for less. I wouldn’t necessarily turn my nose up at groceries or big box stores like Bevmo and Total Wine that also have samples to taste from time to time.
Larger wine shops, such as this one, will oftentimes have discounts that you can sign up for and get email alerts. I would subscribe just for the information:
https://www.klwines.com/InsidersAdvantage
As far as what to buy, I think wines from Santa Barbara, Beaujolais, Germany, Chianti, Rhone valley, and Loire offer great drinking for the money. Very good chance that you can find solid wines from $15-25.
My advice for a starter: Taste more and cellar less.
We just had another thread where someone asked for wines under 200€ and someone told them to go with a DRC… its WB
The same place where people ask for suggestions for a good New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc… “Can you get a get good bottle for under $100?”
This is a great suggestion. There are a lot of good wines in your price range at Berserker Day.
Another idea: what is a larger wine store near you that has its inventory online? If you post a link, we could go on there and recommend specific bottles to try. I’d be happy to do that. I’m just one person’s opinion, but I have a well developed sense of what regular folks and people newer to wine usually like.
OP, on the off chance you’re in MA like me, some good shops to check out are local chains like Gordon’s, Blanchards, and Liquors Inc out in Western Mass. All of these places will have a selection of “serious wines” (i.e., wines made with intention and attention) at any price point. I know Gordon’s runs tastings, as well.
That is a great book for beginners. I remember having questions like “what grapes is Champagne made out of” and using that as a basic guide.
Of course that kind of info is online too, but it’s still a good book to have around.
Pop a lot of corks and remember what you tasted.
(take notes)
$100…that’s crazy talk.
Go ahead, try the Bogles, or a $15 wine that has a good rating on the shelf tag,
and if you find a varietal you like, in an inexpensive wine, do look for a better one to try.
That guy got the price from one of Otto’s tastings, where the person had bought it in the 1980s and it was cheap at the time.
“DRC Grands Echezeaux. Good value at 189€.”
Get the current Top 100 list from Wine Spectacular and have a go, minus the top 10. Seems like the perfect situation for their list. They usually have a broad range of grapes and regions in which you can be somewhat confident that the wine will be representative.
Just don’t take the magazine with you into your local wine store. you don’t want to be labeled a cherry picker on day 1. There’s plenty of time for that when your Burgundy day comes.
Taste a lot. Buy very little for a long while.
This. It’s not a joke. Even if you later on would get a chance to buy a lot of fine (for keeping / aging purposes), don’t.
All too often people who get into wine buy their whatever cellar / cabinet / offsite full of that style of wine they happen to like when they’ve just gotten into wine. 5-10 years later they realize they don’t like that stuff and have wasted all that time aging wine they’re not going to drink instead of purchasing stuff they would’ve loved. It helps a lot if you fill your stash gradually.
Fortunately I myself got into wine when I was a poor university student so I really couldn’t afford to buy much. However, I tasted A LOT (still do), which helped me immensely in figuring out what I like and don’t like. That way I didn’t fill my stash with wines I thought were impressive when I was a wine noob but would be quite unenjoyable now.
So to get a bit more specific, I would start with Zinfandel and Grenache for reds and Riesling for white. These varieties can be quality at much lower prices and easier to find.
I certainly found this useful on my wine journey, of starting with a single country and exploring grapes / regions within it. A way of getting my bearings, but also building confidence that at least in this enclosed area, I was starting to understand it. Over time I branched out much more, and indeed that area I specialised in is only of moderate interest now.
Last year I sought out 3 or 4 of the top 10. This year none were interesting to me. But, down the list as Robert suggests is a great idea. Better hurry though, they go fast, and increase in price fast.
I just want to highlight these excellent suggestions. Before you’re confident describing wines, your notes could simply be letter grades, a 1-5 star system, or even simply “yes” or “no” for whether or not you would buy (again) at that price. Whether or not you like a wine, and then how much you like it as you gain experience, is the most important thing to remember.
Just a few ideas that are mostly rehashing what other people have said:
-
get all the free help you can. For me, I wouldn’t buy a book for a while. Reading online and watching Youtube is free so easily the best place to start. Wine Folly is a really good starting point for starting out. Obviously this board has tons of info, so keep an eye on new threads that interest you. Andre Mack and Konstantin Baum make videos on Youtube that I still watch even if it’s on a topic that I know a lot about or something that doesn’t interest me at all. If a wine store or similar offers free tastings, go to them and try everything that you can for free. And perhaps the hardest to predict but usually the best source is to talk to other people that are into wine, whether that’s somebody you meet at a tailgate or a wine store clerk or maybe a waiter or whatever. Tell them what interests you and ask for recommendations: wines to try, shops to visit, places that do tastings.
-
once you’ve read/watched some then pick out a somewhat focused starting point. Maybe it’s a country; do you want to try French wine? South African? Australian? South American? Or maybe it’s a grape; cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel, pinot noir? Wine is a huge subject so I have found it helpful to focus. Past few years I’ve been into French wine and I started with Bordeaux and then I was interested in the Rhone and now I’m diving into smaller areas within the Rhone. I have other interests but I’m having fun learning about stuff going sort of subject by subject; that’s just what has helped give me focus and keep my interest.
-
try several in the category that you picked. I wholeheartedly agree you should go to whatever local wine shop or liquor store that is near you and ask questions, make friends, do any free tasting they have. Let’s say you picked French wines to start and you’ve read about a couple regions and one sounds interesting. Go to your local shop and see what they have, talk to whoever can answer your questions and give them your criteria. I find that wine shop people all of the world love it when someone comes in and says something like: “my budget is X and I want one or two bottles from Y region in Z country”.
-
this is MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: keep notes on what you have tried and what you thought of each. You can do star ratings or points or just thumbs up/thumbs down, but keep something so you can remember exactly which you liked and didn’t. Then you can check your phone and scroll and go “oh yeah, I had this before but it wasn’t my thing” or “hey it seems like I’ve really enjoyed most of the Italian wines I’ve had so far” and then that can help you focus your budget later.
-
the only mistake you can make is not sticking to your budget. I suggested heavily that you read and ask others but always remember that you’re trying to find out what YOU like, not what other people like. That being said, I personally find it most satisfying to drink and talk about wine with others. For example, my wife is much better at naming a flavor in a wine and I find that helpful. Recently somebody started a thread that was “if you could go back 25 years and start over in wine, what would you do?” and I think my biggest response was: spend less money. I got curious about big/famous names or whatever, but I have got much more satisfaction and enjoyment about discovering at $16 bottle that knocked my socks off than stretching to $400 for a bottle that was good but decidedly not 20x better. Stick to your budget until your budget has truly changed. If it isn’t fun and interesting and rewarding, then don’t do it. Good luck, have fun.
I like to keep this really simple: drink. Try as much as you can. Try wines in different situations. Try as many wines as you can … and if you like it? Drink it. If you don’t like it? Drink something else. If you really like it? Drink some more.
Sounds like you’d like some Valpolicella Ripasso
I love making tasting notes on CT. I can sort by region, score I gave, vintage, producer, grape, etc. to narrow down what wine to buy going forward.