Have you considered diving into aged whites more? I rarely enjoy young whites but love aged rieslings, white burg with age etc. Obviously these will a lot of times go over the budget you are talking about, but good to give them a shot. Maybe you’ll find ones that are worth it to you. I drink 25-45$ bottles of aged riesling often.
Sometimes just that touch of sweetness does it for me. Like certain Hungarian whites with about 2g/l residual sugar.
Also I have been getting way more into champagne and have found some great ones in the $45 range. I love Marc Hebrart BDB, Charles Heidseck brut reserve, Gaston Chiquet BDB.
I personally think Champagne is the best value in whites, at least in Chardonnay for sure. As long as you find the ones that suit you. No extra brut’s or brut nature for me, at least not in that price range.
Nutty or oily character, especially in older white Rhône wines.
I think there’s just as much to love in white wines as in red wines, it’s just different stuff, and it may not be to your liking. But there’s so much more than Chardonnay!
I think the longer I’ve been drinking wine, the more comfortable I am in simply saying that there are things I don’t like. So, for example, I’m not fond of zinfandel or oxidative whites. I’d not say they’re bad wines (and I recognize the quality in some wines I don’t like), but at the same time, I’m perfectly fine not drinking them. Of course, I think continuing to experiment is fun, but there may also come a point where after experimentation you simply decide you don’t like white wine - and that’s totally fine.
Of course, I say that as I’m having a glass of Willi Schaefer 2019 Graacher spatlese, so I think lots of white wine is great, but that’s the beauty of this hobby - we’d both be right
Living in a country where all wines sold go through laboratory analysis gives you some idea on wine composition (and having worked several years with wine gives you more).
Virtually all “bone dry” wines finish at 1-3 g/l residual sugar. While it’s possible to have the wine finish below 1 g/l, that seems to be quite rare. Most white wines I’ve seen tend to have 1-2 g/l (if you get the lab analyses, the values are typically something like 1.23 g/l or 2.41 g/l).
Anyways, human palate really can’t discern differences of 2-3 g/l sugar solution - and the higher the acidity, the more difficult it is to discern whether there is any residual sugar; with a low-acid white 4 g/l might seem quite conspicuous, but with very high-acid wine you might still think 5 g/l is fully dry.
Up until about 8 or so years ago I favored reds. Two things happened. One, I do a lot of entertaining and was finding that white wines paired so much better with the food I liked to cook, and thus I just naturally started drinking more white wine with food.
Two, I moved to New Orleans for a few years. Drinking a big red in the summer just wasn’t a thing. It was such a turnoff in the heat. So I started drinking even more white wine.
My favourite wines are still reds, but there’s just so many situations where whites are more appropriate.
I don’t know how long the OP has been drinking wine, but if he is fairly new to wine, I am not surprised by his preferences. I think that for most people it is easier when you first get into wines to love dramatic flavors and it is only with more experience that one begins to enjoy wines with more subtle flavors. I started out liking German Kabinetts, Spatlese and Auslesen, then moved to red wines. It was only later that I started liking white Burgundy and even much later that I started liking Champagnes.
There is no reason that one has to like white wines, but if you really want to give it a go, I would say go back to Rieslings. I make this recommendation because it is the one place where you can buy wines from some of the greatest wine producers in the world for under $50 or so. Don’t think about what you think you are supposed to like in Rieslings. Try a variety of styles - say Trimbach Cuvee Frederic Emile or Albert Mann Schlossberg from Alsace, Maximin Grunhauser Kabinett or Spatlese from the Ruwer (Abtsberg or Herrenberg taste different but both can be great), Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Kabinett or Spatlese from the Saar; Kabinetts or Splatlese from JJ Prum or Selbach from the Middle Mosel, or from Donnhoff from the Nahe - and see if you like any of them.
If you want to try an alternative to this, try Loire Chenin Blancs that are off dry - say, demi sec - from producers like Huet or Chidaine. A bit richer than Riesling or Chardonnay so you may like it more.
Wait a while to go to Chardonnay. When you start with Chardonnay, try wines with less obvious oak and good fruit. If you want California Chardonnay maybe try Au Bon Climat or Matthiasson or from Bouchard or Drouhin in Burgundy. You might also try wine from Domaine Drouhin in Oregon - it can be fun to compare the wines made by Drouhin in Oregon and Burgundy. Whatever you do, drink the Chardonnays with food and not as a cocktail. Riesling IMHO is much better as a cocktail.
While I do love oaky chardonnays as a cocktail wine, or with grilled chicken and shrimp for instance, I really have taken a liking to Rhone varietal whites from Tablas Creek. Roussanne, Marsanne, and their blends, specially the Esprit de Tablas blanc.
Since I live in Florida, there are just some days in the summer where even thinking of drinking a red is tough, so enjoying whites allows me to continue enjoying wine all year…since I will always prefer wine to beer, etc.
Well then I may have some misinformation about the particular wine that I am referring to. I will look into it further. Your statement is obviously right now that I think about. But this wine does have just that touch of discernible sweetness. I’m referring to a 2015 Apatsagi Pince Somloi Harslevelu. Maybe its actually higher than listed. Or something about their process is different that causes it to show.
In reference to my champagne tastes, my favorites tend to have between 5 to 8 g/l. So 2g/l would definitely be in the bone dry range.
For comparison. What would a typical Kabinett or Spatlese have?
It depends on the region, the producer and the vintage. And the measured sugar doesn’t necessarily correspond to the tasting impression. In the Mosel, where it’s cool and acids are high, a wine with higher residual sugar may seem dryer than one from another region with lower RS and lower acid.
Also, in the past two decades, there have been many warm vintages, and so many wines that would qualify to be labeled as Auslese are sold as Spatlese, and Spatlese as Kabinett. In other words, some wines have significantly more RS than the same bottling would have had 25 years ago.
Bottom line: It’s hard to infer anything about the RS level from the Pradikat alone.
That is critical IMHO. There’s actually two separate points here. Don’t serve dry whites too cold, regardless of decanting or not. Second, young quality whites with complexity need some air time to open up and decanting will help that. Older wines I prefer to plan things so there is simply time to see how the wines evolve in the glass. I’m not sure it’s specifically Old World per se more a matter of the style and quality of wine.
I have had interesting discussions in restaurants about decanting when ordering for example top 1er Cru Chablis from recent vintages which will be served right away or with the first course. The classic was a trip to Quebec City in the Before Times, when on two consecutive nights, first. at Chez Muffy the excellent sommelier decanted the Chablis without being asked, and the following night at Saint Amour the ‘wine waiter’ refused to do so, I ended up having to get pretty direct with the manager.
I would say I am pretty new. I started collecting and drinking wine just under 10 years ago but it was at very small scale. At that time I liked Port, Cali cabs, and big bold cali blends. Very quickly fell in love with Amarone, and more slowly into Brunello. Then into a variety of old world reds and by sheer chance into sauternes. A little over 2 years ago I started drinking and collecting much more seriously opening 25ish bottles each month and trying a pretty heavy variety. At this point I still think 30% of the bottles I open I would consider experimentation in some form or another. I imagine this will gradually decrease but mostly because it will just be too difficult to source the variety.
regarding 2005 Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix Chablis 1er Cru Les Lys… I probably only gave this 2 hours or so in the bottle. Probably too little time? Serving temp was mid 60s.
What do you mean “in the bottle”? Just pulling the cork doesn’t do much to open up the wine. Richard and I are talking about pouring it into a decanter some time ahead of serving it.
unfortunately pulling the cork is exactly what I meant. I often slow ox, unless I don’t have enough time or in this case, didn’t know any better. I wont make that mistake again but unfortunately, that was my only bottle.
“Slow oxing” was meant for very old, delicate wines where it’s risky to pour them into a decanter and expose them to a lot of air. It can allow some funky scents to blow off. But it’s pretty pointless for young wines, or even a 2005 Chablis (assuming that the Chablis hasn’t succumbed to oxidation).
It was a lunch at your place maybe 15 years ago that really brought that point home to me. You had decanted a mature white Burgundy (I don’t now recall what it was) a couple of hours ahead, and it was stellar.
I actually slow ox mostly because I can monitor how it is changing. I like to sample it here and there throughout. But on most young reds I notice some pretty serious changes over 2-6 hours. Really depends on the wine though. Ignorantly, I just didn’t know that white burgundy really needed air.
This might be the next step in my decanting evolution. I have so far only decanted youngish white burgs that were too tight. What do you see from more mature ones? How long do you usually decant for?
