Five Things You Think You Know About Wine

Myths about wine abound.  I recently thought about this when I attended a course offered by the international Wine & Spirits Education Trust.  As I was reminded (again) of all the erroneous information that’s out there related to wine, I excitedly relayed it all to my family and friends, and then it hit me: you, faithful readers, might benefit from the same information.  So here goes:  five things you might think you know about wine that really aren’t true:

Myth 1: Price and quality are directly related.  Not true!  All other things being equal, an outstanding wine might cost more than a mediocre one, but when was the last time all things were equal?  It’s basic economics:  supply and demand determine price.  If a wine is popular – even if it isn’t especially good – the price rises.  If wine is scarce because of bad weather conditions or a poor harvest, prices rise.  If weather is good and better farming techniques increase yields, prices fall.  It’s as simple as that.  So don’t buy wine to impress based on the price tag.  If you want to always have a hit on your hands, here are a few tips for making your selection:

●Look for a producer you trust.  If you’ve liked a label in the past, you’ll probably like it in the future.  I personally like Beringer, Columbia Crest, Ravenswood, Rabbit Ridge, Beaulieu, Benziger and Chateau Ste. Michelle.  I serve them to my friends, who often assume wrongly that I paid far more for them than I did.  The best thing about these labels is that they are consistently reliable:  their cheap wines are good and their more expensive wines are even better.

●Look for the varietals that it is hard to ruin.  You almost can’t make bad wine from sauvignon blanc, zinfandel and Riesling grapes.  The wines are not always top shelf – it takes a lot to make a great wine – but chances are good that they will be decent, and a predictably decent sauvignon blanc is a far better wine choice than a hard-to-predict merlot (and probably a lot cheaper).

●Read the notes on the label.  Notes are written by someone who is trying to sell you wine, and they therefore never suggest the wine in the bottle is mediocre or bad.  They do, however, generally tell you about the style of the wine:  is it “dry” or “fruity”?  Is it bold or delicate?  Is it good for sipping or intended to accompany a hearty meat dish?  Check the notes for the general outline of whether this is the wine you want to proffer to your guests on this occasion.

Myth 2:  Red wine goes with red meat; white wine pairs with chicken and fish.  If I only had a dollar for each time I’ve heard this….  The basic rule of thumb is that wines need to match weight and flavor of the food on your plate.  Ask yourself, would I put it in the saucepan with my food?  You wouldn’t pour a heavy, spicy wine sauce over a subtle, delicate flaky fish with lemon notes, so don’t pour it in your mouth with the same dish!  I recently paired a sec (sweet) Champagne with a rich, hot tamale pie—an unusual pairing for sure, but I wanted to play the sweetness and acidity of the wine off the strong acidity of the tomato and the heat from the jalpenos.  I never would have dared try this successful pairing if I were stuck in “red is meat and white is chicken” land.  So live a little.  Here are some basic rules to help:

●Sweet wines go well with hot or spicy foods;

●Sauvignon blanc is a savior when you need something to go with vegetables or salads;

●Do not serve cabernet with oily fish because the big tannins in the wine will make the fish taste bitter or metallic;

●When faced with a meal that calls for a big red wine and you have a guest who only drinks white (more about that below), chardonnay is the next best thing;

●Zinfandel is great with just about anything grilled; and

●If you don’t know what else to do, match a wine’s origin with food from that same region (Chianti goes with lasagna and other Italian dishes; Oregon pinots go with salmon).

Myth 3:  I don’t like white wine.  Do you really dislike white wine or do you like red wine better because it has a better reputation, it’s generally more expensive, and it’s what the rich and famous seem to drink?  I admit, I once shared this snobbish view.  Highly prized wines that sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars a bottle are almost always red, so it’s easy to conclude that red must be better than white.  But those wines are few and far between and I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford them anyway!  One of the things that makes wine so enjoyable is the variety that is out there, and all the new experiences you can have with new and different wines.  If you think it’s OK to skip half the choices, it means you just haven’t tried enough of the interesting and unusual varietals out there.  Live a little.  There’s more to white wine than chardonnay or sauvignon blanc.  Try an Oregon pinot gris or a pinot blanc.  Grab a Riesling or a marsanne or a rousanne or a viognier.  Especially on hot days, rediscover your wild side with a sip of white. 

Myth 4:  Zinfandel is a white (or pink) wine.  NO IT’S NOT!  That light pink stuff is a product of 1970s wine economics.  When Americans began to associate white wine and white meats with health and red wine and red meat with sloth and fat, the owners of tens of thousands of acres of zinfandel grapes looked desperately for a way to save their livelihood.  Because replanting those acres with white wine would be costly and the new vines wouldn’t produce any quantity of grapes for 3-5 years, they hit upon a new idea:  make white (or pink) wine out of really good red grapes.  They succeeded wildly, and as a result most Americans wrongly assume that all zinfandel is light, fruity and white or pink.  In fact, a good red zinfandel is a fantastic taste experience which will pair with a wide variety of foods.  Men especially shouldn’t miss out on this taste experience because they’ve already written off this wine as too “girley” for their macho tastes.

Myth 5:  Only an expert can truly enjoy wine.  I’ve often been in gatherings where one or another person will offer a taste of wine to me and say, “I really like this, but I don’t know anything so you’ll have to tell me if it’s good.”  Wine is good because you like it.  Period.  Think of it like food – you can learn over time whether something is well made, but even if you can appreciate the work that went into a dish, it doesn’t mean you can guarantee every guest at your table is going to like it!  Taste, thank goodness, is a very personal thing.  So, while my studies have taught me how to determine if a particular wine is well made and true to the grape varietal from which it is made or the region from which it comes, I cannot tell you whether it is “good.”  If you stop me in the wine aisle and ask me to suggest a wine, the first question I’m going to ask in return is, “What do you like?” and to that question, there is no “wrong” answer.

There is an entire tasting and publishing industry which works very hard and very effectively to surround wine with a “mystique” that can be translated to a few more cents or dollars on the price tag.  In fact, wine is one of the oldest products on earth, and in thousand of years, the rules haven’t changed: Good wine is wine that makes you check out the bottle and ask yourself, “I wonder if there’s more?”